I've run away and found my dream house

Who knew that it would be in Spokane, Washington?

My new home is named Gilda, which happens to be my beautiful, now-deceased aunt's name. She gave me a copy of The Hobbit when I was seven years old and made my first holy communion, which I promptly read and -- well -- you know the rest of my history of reading. I tell you this because I have always loved the idea of hobbit residences, small cosy cottages, and this is exactly my dream house.

In all honesty, I am up in Spokane helping to move Henry into his new dorm room. I didn't think he wanted me to come up with him this year, but when I asked him what day he needed a plane ticket and he said, Aren't you coming with me? and I said, Oh, do you want me to come with you? and he said, Yes! I want you to help me and also meet my roommate! and I said, Well, I guess. Ha ha ha ha ha. Do you want to?

So here we are. Unlike Dream House Gilda, Henry's new dorm room is named The Ugliest Dorm Room in the Disunited States of America.

Notice the blue PLASTIC curtains. I won't share the picture of the communal bathroom out in the hallway. I snuck inside to use it and was barely able to sit down on the toilet without my knees hitting the door. I was literally about one inch from reading the Potty Talk Newspaper that was taped on the door, educating me about social justice issues. Today we will be shaping up the ship, visiting Target. I'll post an "after" shot, but in the meantime, know that the two guys living there will lend it a degree of beauty that it might never have seen.

Fun fact: Henry's roommate has several siblings with special needs and is, according to Henry, the nicest person he's ever met. 

That's either completely wild and random or, there are no accidents, as my friend Carrie says.

What did I know about anything?

I was in Spokane this past weekend, visiting with Henry for Family Weekend at his university. It was fall in Spokane, and the colors were brilliant.

I don't know what I felt -- joy, certainly, in seeing my son again, but there was something else, something faint and melancholy and in-between.

You know very well what it is. Was. That lonely feeling. There's not much time between now and then. I remember what it felt like, to be so new.

The hotel where I stayed had paper-thin walls. I drifted toward them in the morning, a ghost with a toothbrush I held still in my mouth, breath held, the lovers on the other side breath less.

It only takes a few trees on fire, sun-dappled leaves, just so, to make me eighteen again and wistful. The word hesitant. The word restless. The word yearn.

I'm a mother now, watching my son move forward.

Here's a poem that I can't get out of my mind.


The Five Spot

There’s always a lesson to be learned,
whether in a hotel bar
or over tea in a teahouse,
no matter which way it goes,
for you or against,
what you want to hear or what you don’t.

Seeing Roland Kirk, for example,
with two then three saxophones
in his mouth at once
and a kazoo, no less,
hanging from his neck at the ready.

Even in my youth I saw
this not as a lesson in keeping busy
with one thing or another,
but as a joyous impossible lesson
in how to do it all at once,

pleasing and displeasing yourself
with harmony here and discord there.
But what else did I know
as the waitress lit the candle
on my round table in the dark?
What did I know about anything?

Billy Collins