Transom, Weather

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 All week, the weather app on my phone has threatened apocalypse at the furthest range of the forecast: snow, temperatures in the teens. Meteorologists have been quick to temper with caveats: we don't know much that far out, it's unlikely in an el nino winter to have a snowstorm, etc. 

Living in the Midwest, you can see your weather coming: great colorful blobs moving eastward along the jet stream from the West Coast to appear as thunderstorms, blizzards, arctic blasts. Here, the weather moves silently across the Pacific, out of sight (I guess?) of weather satellites and all the vaguaries and mysteries of the Pacific, and we know about it a few days before it arrives. Snowstorms appear in Portland sometimes unannounced, sneak in and change their mind somewhere beyond the buoys and the city shuts down.The city panics, like most places that aren't used to regular snow. Life stops, busses rattle down the streets with chains on their tires, people cross country ski to the liquor store.

I am not convinced that an el nino winter means no snowstorms. We moved here in January of 2014, another el nino season,  leaving one of the coldest and snowiest winters in Michigan and landed here in a normal Portland winter: hellebores starting to bloom, winter daphne not far behind. And then, three weeks into my new job at the college, we got eight inches of snow.

But I've buried the lede. Today I dropped J. off at his dorm at Portland State. This is take two. The first, at Lewis and Clark, didn't stick. That is delicate. It was disastrous. I am not ready to write about it, and it isn't really my story to tell, but suffice it to say that this late summer and fall have been some of the hardest months of our lives. But it has also allowed us to move into this next phase of our lives--no longer required to uproot ourselves once a month, no longer forced to slip into old selves and old lives and, for me, be a ghost at the edge of my old life. This Christmas was the first we've spent together (with one exception and that resulted in lengthy court battles) since he was one year old. 

Of course, I spent most of it flat on my back with covid and sicker than I've been in I don't know how long. Maybe ever. (And yes, I've been vaccinated and have had every booster and caught it from R. who has had every booster but the last one, which he was due to get the week he tested positive.) The boys stayed healthy, and by Christmas day we could all be together, and D. and R. and I were able to fly to Albuquerque to see my inlaws and J. stayed home with the olden dog, who'd visited the emergency vet a few days before for (another) exploded anal gland and the discovery of a mass on his liver. He, the olden dog, is 16.5 years old, horribly arthritic and suffers from dementia but is still happy and eating and we brought him home to live out his days (hell, there might be another 16 years this dog is made of stainless steel) at home.

Anyway. Tonight J. is at his dorm and when I left he seemed ready for me to go. He's majoring in Art, he's got friends at the college (just one floor above!), he got his first tattoo and his ears pierced and is the most stylish human I have ever met. He is ready. Me, not so much. I feel like I missed so much, like so much of raising him was done in a state of terror, that for most of his 18 years I have been barely hanging on. The best thing I did for him (and for me) was to leave my first marriage and the second was to move here, but I also feel an enormous sadness that I couldn't--we couldn't--have an easier go of it. He has been the absolute center of my life, and for so many years I was his sun and now (to quote some instagram sage) I suppose I must be his moon. But I don't know yet what my like in a further orbit, our house empty (as empty as you can be with two humans, five cats, one dog, and three chickens). I feel old. I feel sad. I walked for miles this afternoon when I got back home, soaked to my marrow in cold, pouring rain. I love being his mother. It is the best thing I have ever done, even if I wish desperately I could have done it better.

When he was born, I discovered what it meant to be in love. I had never known such a feeling. And I found my purpose and worth concentrated down to a laser beam: i would not allow him to have my life. I must imagine a better life for both of us. I did everything in my power to stake my heart on hope, because the future I could not imagine for myself, I knew I must imagine for my son. And so, for my self. But here we are and as long as I don't get a call at 1 AM, terror zapping over the line, he is ready to launch.I hope he is ready to launch, even if I'm not. 

I am hoping for snow. I am always hoping for weather. But for us? I am hoping for peace. I am hoping for an ordinary grace of unremarkable softness. No, of remarkable softness. We have earned it, my boy and me. 

My office, with all the plants that the cats haven't killed yet. Deeply grateful for this space, and this life.

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