Être la mère

I suppose this happens to all parents, but it is a curious thing when your child stands tall enough to look you straight in the eyes.  I’m not a short person and I naively thought that my stature would buy me a few more years before my oldest would sprout that tall.  But thirteen is an interesting age – and this year finds him creeping ever closer to parity.

My first son was born very small.  Only 5 ½ pounds, my little one entered the world with quite an agenda and appetite for life.  He fit so sweetly in the little grey carrier I wore – him bouncing along as we walked and explored the world together. 

We were inseparable.  Sun-flecked mornings at the park and beach, long afternoons on the carpet of our 3^rd floor Santa Monica apartment. 

A friend had quilted a large blue blanket with scraps of cotton fabric bearing adorable childhood scenes and colorful patterns.  In each corner I stacked all types of curiosities for my newly crawling son.  He wasted no time finding his surprises – little expressions of glee at each one. 

Our overly fluffy cat, Nauni, loved this part and tried to be the first to each corner.  “Nauni!”, we would chide, “That’s not your toy, silly girl!” 

We read piles of books, sang songs that we made up, and played endless games with his extensive race car collection. 

It was heaven. 

Ok, maybe not heaven all the time.  I had my fair share of doubt that I was cut out for this whole mothering thing.  But in the quiet moments as I sat next to his crib and watched him sleep, it was bliss.

One of my obsessions was sitting behind him on the floor to observe him without him seeing me.  I loved watching the back of his tiny head and neck as he would reach out for a toy, study it, and place it back. Then he’d catch a glimpse of something else, pick it up, and study that too.  Then he’d peer down at his toes quizzically or pause to consider a wild squirrel precariously climbing the tall palm tree out our window.    

My father liked to say that he could hear the long rows of filing cabinets in his grandson’s head opening and closing as he took it all in. 

Swish, whir, slide, latch…

My son has always been a unique, beautiful human.  He is a wise soul – empathetic and sensitive, fiercely independent, determined.  Aware, yet unafraid of his limits. He sees the world differently.  For him, the frequency of life is tuned to uber high-fidelity.  And there’s no down toggle.

I learned one fact quickly:  if I wanted to come along on this ride with him, I had to scrap any preconceived ideas I had of where we were going.  We were clearly embarking on an uncharted journey.

Soon preschool and grade school started, and he was gone for large stretches of the day.  Sports teams and new friends encroached on our afternoon playtime.  And then puberty, sleep away camp and teenage life left me staring at a closed bedroom door or an empty bedroom altogether. 

And it’s dawning on me that I have gone from being in the center of his world to being a bystander. 

As parents, we all know this separation happens.  It has to.  And yet secretly I think we all believe that it might be different for us.  Or at least, we’ll be able to hang on longer than others. 

During the High Holidays when I was a new mother, I read a passage about the mourning of mothers.  It described how from the first moment a child is born, the mother embarks on a protracted journey of separation from her child.  Sharing a body, sharing a life, sharing a home, sharing a community, sharing a big bold world.  It’s gradual – day by day – sometimes nearly imperceptible. 

But soon we all find ourselves childless and wondering where the time went.   

So today, my son and I are 30,000 feet in the air over the Mediterranean flying to Sicily to spend the weekend together.  Just the two of us.

We’ve never taken a trip like this before.  The four of us typically travel together but we are quite a gaggle of conflicting agendas.  My husband and I thought it might be fun for each of us to go on an adventure with just one son and see where the universe led.

And it feels like the thing I’ve been needing for quite a while.

I’ve tried to allot the proverbial “special time” to each of my sons during their childhoods.  It seemed such an easy thing to do when I read about it in the zillion parenting articles I consumed those first few years. 

Take a few minutes each day and just be present with your child.  Easy right? 

“I got this”, I thought. 

But I’ll admit, the goal has eluded me more than I like.  Somewhere between loads of laundry, making meals, and washing dishes I’ve missed too many of these sweet opportunities. 

But not this weekend…

This weekend is dedicated to rediscovering this “jeune homme” living in my house.  I’m lucky to be able to work from home, so I know most of the obvious things about him.  But this weekend, instead of the cursory conversations and mountains of advice I dispense all day, I want to just listen to him.  Follow his lead.  Let him show me what catches his interest, what he thinks is cool, how he wants to spend his time. 

And maybe along the way I can sense the subtleties of the man he is growing to be. 

As I sit beside him, I see his head turn to look out the window.  We are approaching the island and I sense his delight.  He is an ocean kid – the beach is his “happy place” he often tells us.  He presses his face nearer to the window and watches our flight path with interest – for a moment forgetting that he is a teenager and isn’t supposed to be interested.   

And I’m transported back to those days on the floor just after he learned to sit up on his own.  I am propped up against the couch watching him from behind.  A sea of colorful toys are gathered all around his pudgy legs.  Quietly he picks up his race cars one at a time and explores every thrilling detail.  File cabinets open and close.  He is in the zone.

And I realize…his head has grown much larger now and his neck longer…his cheeks are thin and his back strong…and he already has to cram his long legs into the narrow plane seat. 

But there’s no mistaking that my baby is right here.