the last blue iris

 Today, my boy moved into the dorms for his freshman year of college. It has been a long and hard week, of unbloggable things, and I have been worried beyond my skin for him. He has had to carry so much in his 18 years without a lot of opportunities to be himself. I have held him like I held him as a baby, let him sob in my arms, promised him I'm not going anywhere, we  aren't going anywhere. This is always home until he chooses it not to be. He is six miles away, at a dream school, the kind of school I went to. We walked through the art studios today, the music practice room. Met his roommates.  I know. I am not special in this, nor unique. Kids grow up, grow away. This child has been the project of my life, the through line that has kept us both afloat, my love for him, my fierce determination to build a better life for us. I did not know myself until I had him; I did not know how to say no , or even how to say yes.  I knew how to be something for other people, som...

(August 10) A month ago, I cut off all my hair. Or most of it. I plan on cutting the rest of it in another month, before things start up and the churn of academia begins again. In a week and a half, J. leaves for college. I am not sure I can talk about this yet. I am not sure I can think about this yet. Today, at my annual pap smear, my midwife (whose youngest is also heading off to college in a few weeks) fist bumped me and said, Girl, we did it. On our walk today, J. and I saw a leucistic heron or a great egret floating above the neighborhood. The olden dog snuffled through dry weeds, the dog we adopted when J. was barely two, in my little apartment in Kalamazoo. Then, my hair was short too: a friend had cut it on their porch after a particularly ridiculous breakup, when I'd run to E. and K.'s because I knew it was safe, because I knew they--my queerest of queer friends--were my people in a way other folks weren't.  I didn't feel safe enough to grow my hair out until ...