When my son arrived on the 29th of August, I thought we had an eternity in which to reacquaint ourselves. We had an amazing weekend at the Russian River and then returned to my ‘real’ life and his temporarily relocated existence. Time stood still; time accelerated; I luxuriated in this chance to see my son as an adult and found myself aghast when the seventeen days dissolved into tissue on the floor.
We walked, we talked, we laughed, we cried. I do not pretend to speak for him. As for Patrick Corley’s mother, I challenged myself to undertake any expedition that he proposed. We went where he wanted; watched videos that he eagerly recommended; and ignored my self-imposed limitations. We went to a park and choose the farthest picnic table. I eased myself down to sit on rocks adjacent to a lake in the foothills. I watched birds peck at the cliff in front of me and sank within the folds of unexpected joy. I grasped the walking stick that my son bought for me many years ago at the Ren Fest and hauled myself from that lakeside, dusty and tired but exhilarated. We drove an hour so that I, a vegetarian, could eat catfish fillet and hush puppies while he sampled perch and potato salad. The chef beamed at us. We felt like we’d gone back to the streets of Kansas City, to a simpler time and a smaller place.
Perhaps we yearned for somewhere that we had never actually been; a place that we only imagined as home.
On the evening before his flight back to Chicago, we cleaned the cabin that the park manager had let him use. We packed his clothes and personal items. We stowed anything I had brought for him to use in the back of my car. We dined on leftover fish and a mushroom frittata. More words flowed. Hope danced in the clean corners. From the southern window, we watched the moon rise and shared a long, silent breath.
In the morning, we walked across the park to the community room. A few last introductions happened; a few more conversations unfolded; a few more turns on the gravel road saw the slow, easy step of our feet. We carried his packs outside and locked the door of the cabin seconds before his ride pulled into the lot behind my car. He wrapped his arms around me. He cradled a small succulent in a clay pot in his hand to carry back with him. Renee opened her trunk and he swung his bags over its edge. The car door opened. He smiled over his shoulder. And then, with a backwards glance and a gleam in his eye, he left me standing on the wooden steps of an old park model in a former KOA on the banks of the San Joaquin River.
It’s the eighteenth day of the one-hundred and twenty-ninth month of My Year Without Complaining. Life continues.
