Changes

The Baron’s Boy is home from his summer session of Chemistry at college. Only two weeks and then he returns for his last year of undergraduate work.

In some ways, this period evokes the time leading up to his first venture off to college. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because he’s in love and I can see a change in him that I can’t quite articulate. So it brings back memories of the younger boy, the one who is gone…or at least irrevocably changed.

He still talks a lot. We were fortunate parents – never had one of those sulky kids who hung out in their bedroom, coming out only for meals. But being an only child (his half-siblings being a generation older) left him with only us to talk to, so we were a captive audience. Thus it was that we enlisted him in the nefarious role of inveterate reader. It helped that there was no TV and we lived (live) in the middle of nowhere.

But now he has wider fields to roam, fields full of people. He loves his job as a sales clerk in a tourist town; lots of chances to schmooze. And his music fraternity offers some scope for this ability, as do his dorm mates and classes.

Not much instant messaging, though. Seems like when love takes over, there’s not much room for chatting with your old friends. Sitting across the table from one another eating sushi is time-consuming. It’s a full time job for awhile, discovering that you both like cats and don’t like television and that you were born under the same sign.

This week, a grandchild celebrates his first year among us. A lovely, calm baby, just walking and saying everyone’s names. It’s also the month for Big D’s birthday and it will be K’s 21st.

My how time flies! (what? You expected me to say something original?) It seems to violate some natural law when children continue to grow when you’re not even looking. They ought to stay the same age so that when you’re able to pay attention to them again, there will be no shocking changes. On the other hand, that would mean most of my friends would be much younger than I, and my children would all be about ten years of age. Actually, the latter is true: to me, a person is most truly himself at age ten. He continues on, gaining height and a whole lotta angst in the ensuing years, but you know what? His last years are focused on returning to the child he was when he was ten years old.

Some people make it, and charming souls they are.