Green Waves

The other day, an oddly subdued and melancholy young woman I know explained she had just sent her only daughter off to kindergarten for the first time that morning. I shared with her the words of a very eloquent friend: friggin milestones test us! Or, as sometimes seems the case, milestones suck. 

With a wave of a chubby little hand, the newly independent five -year-old had given her unsuspecting mother a brief glimpse into the inevitable yet still unimaginable future. One day, if things go according to plan, that child will be able to stand on her own two feet for a lot longer than a few hours, sometimes even days or weeks. But for now, I thought the weepy mom's pity party seemed premature. She will still be enjoying milk and cookies with her daughter after school, will still tuck her in at night and touch her soft cheek and tell her how much she loves her, and, by mere virtue of her presence, she will still have the power to filter out all but the sweetest of dreams. Add to that her own wrinkle free face and still not saggy ass and her blissful unfamiliarity with waking up in the middle of the night soaked in a pool of her own sweat and I really couldn't see why she was so mopey. I'm ashamed to admit it but what I felt more than anything was envy and more than a healthy dose of pure loathing.

Last night, I parted ways with my youngest child on a steamy street corner in New Orleans. She and her roommate headed back to their dorm, I headed back to my hotel. We had spent the day unpacking and organizing and figuring out how to maximize every inch of space in her half of a very narrow room. As it turned out, for a change, I had miscalculated and she had been right. The clothing, the shoes, the toiletries, the boxes and bags of stuff I felt certain would never fit into the confines of her dorm room somehow fit with room to spare. Even the seven thick sweatshirts she will probably never remove from the drawer.

She knows she doesn't need the sweatshirts. Or the dozens of pairs of shoes. At least not in the traditional sense. But she is astute enough to know she does need those things if she is to turn this tiny half rectangle into "home." Living in a place for an extended period simply does not make it so. Only nine months ago, when we moved from a large suburban house to a small townhouse one suburb over, she wasted no time setting up her new room with her things, turning it into home. I did the same with the rest of the house. Nine months ago, though, the transition was smoother; our pillows moved, but the people -- and  the dog -- remained the same. For this move, she needed to bring in the big guns; not just the sweats and the shoes, but piles of photos documenting her journey so far. There is still some empty space on the walls, room for the photographic journey to continue.

Three kids, three sets of milestones, each one different from the others. But the last one always packs an extra punch. It conjures up memories of doing similar things at different times, always when I was younger. Having a baby at thirty-six was a lot different from having a baby at twenty-nine or thirty. Launching a child at fifty-four was a lot different from launching a child at forty-seven or forty-eight. And not just because I fell asleep on the trolley and missed my stop, not just because I fell flat on my face while trying to text my daughter and explain where I had ended up and why. I know from experience how quickly these four years will pass, and how few chances I have left to enjoy milk and cookies after school with my child. I know from experience that it doesn't matter so much where she goes to school or what classes she takes or even how much she studies. What matters is that she does it on her own terms, and stays safe and reasonably happy as she morphs into the adult she will become by the time she leaves this place. As inevitable and unimaginable as it seems.

I had painted my fingernails green for the move, in honor of the school colors. It seemed fitting that when I said goodbye I would be giving her a green wave, a nod to the school's sports teams. Yes, with a wave of my sea foam tipped hand, this disbelieving mother gave herself a brief glimpse into what is still, even the third time around, an unimaginable future.

The Deer Days of August

These days, I watch the progression of summer from the seat of my bike. It's been an unseasonable season, often fall-like, offering up no more than a handful of dog days so far. The calendar says it is August, yet I have barely broken a sweat. Still, Mother Nature perseveres, and the foliage on both sides of the bike path has grown as thick as it always does this time of year. The trees bend toward each other with the weight of summer leaves, forming an opaque canopy overhead.

Nature's sun screen, nature's umbrella, nature's blind spot. The weather outside may be frightful, or not, but the trees are thriving, right on schedule. The other day, with the lushness of summer growth blocking my view, I didn't see the tiny family of deer at the edge of the bike path until I was staring at point blank range right into the large watchful eyes of the doe. She stood perfectly still, her right foreleg slightly bent, her two babies like statues only inches behind her. Mother Nature's performance art. I tightened my fingers around my brakes and slowed my pedaling, poised to stop if a child lurched forward. The doe remained calm, but her eyes followed me as I passed. We were two moms, suspicious and protective, both seemingly in control.

We moms have a lot in common. We are tenacious, we stick to the schedule, we make sure our babies grow and thrive. I wonder whether the doe, or Mother Nature for that matter, doubt themselves the way we human moms tend to do. I met someone this week, a mom. A human one, my young neighbor's mom. She is visiting from out of town, helping one daughter move in with the other, spending her days caring for all the dogs and unpacking and breaking down empty boxes and organizing so the new living arrangement will be as perfect as it can be. She is about my age; we spoke across our backyard fences the other day, and all I saw, really, was a doe, doing what does do, without really thinking about it. She was taking care of business.

This morning, we spoke, face to face. We were both bleary eyed, wearing sweats, dragging garbage to the curb. Within minutes, we bonded, in a way that only women who have been daughters and sisters and wives and mothers can bond. We have both experienced great joy and suffered great loss. We are both, for a variety of reasons,

in a place now of change and uncertainty, and we are both trying to find our way. She is upset with herself in ways I have been upset, and I am scared in ways she has been scared. Her story is not mine to tell, and so I won't tell it, but we both saw our meeting as a gift. In some way or another, we each offered the other something that would carry us through, that helped answer some nagging question. She is leaving soon, as soon as her work here is done, but we have promised to keep in touch. I hope we do.

Before we spoke, this other mom struck me as so sure of herself, so completely in charge. Like Mother Nature, who keeps the leaves growing in spite of the cool and sometimes gray days. Like the mother deer, who silently watches out for her babies, wordlessly keeping them out of harm's way. Do they wonder, as we do, whether they are doing enough, whether they are doing it right? I don't know for sure, but I doubt it.

We human moms can learn a lot from those other moms. And, as luck and fate will have it, we can learn a lot from each other.