Happy Birthday, Trailblazer

I came across this picture the other day as I was cleaning out a drawer. I remembered the moment it was snapped, on a non-phone camera that was loaded with film, and had thought of it often. In the intervening 14 years, though, I had lost track of the print, and seeing it again brought back a flood of memories.

This was the moment before we drove off and left our first son at college, and I was a hot mess.

It was taken at the end of a long day of orientation, a day at which I had Held It Together with sheer force of will, keeping busy by arranging the first dorm room, fiercely chomping on a piece of gum so that I wouldn't weep during farewell chapel, waving wildly as I watched Boy#1 take his place in the freshman class march around the Quad.

This was the moment when I gave him a last hug before we went our separate ways, and there was no more Holding It Together. Husband snapped this shot and was laughing at my full-out sobs, with me knowing I looked ridiculous but also knowing how much I would miss this smart, funny, tender, nerdy kid.

One was laughing, too, and for that I will be eternally grateful.

He may have been laughing because he realized he had met his future wife just a few hours earlier, even though they wouldn't have their first date for several more years. He may have been laughing because my tear-stained face had just left a big damp print on his shoulder. Or he may have been laughing at sheer relief that this day had come and mostly gone and now he could get on with his life. Whatever the reason, I see that laughter again and it makes me laugh at both of us.

How could I not have known he was more than ready for that day? He had always been the trailblazer, the one who went off to kindergarten first, rode his bike first, jumped off the high board first, got the first driver's license. He was the cow-catcher on the train of boys, opening new paths and adventures for the brothers who followed. He continually reminded us that this (whatever "this" was) was not nearly as big a deal as I thought it would be.

He could handle it, is what I'm saying. Whether it was the first research paper or the semester abroad in Hong Kong, he could take a deep breath and dive in. (Although, frankly, the thought of his hard sleeper train trip through China still makes me shudder with ALL THE WHAT IF'S.)

Today this trailblazer is the first one to turn 32 years old. I remember the moment he was born, a tiny (4 lb. 14 oz.), purple (seriously--purple) morsel who instantly transformed us from a couple to a family.

Maybe that's why he's laughing in this picture: He had survived those inexperienced, often inept parents, and was ready to take on the world.

Today he's a grown-up and a professional, married to his Lovely Girl and possessor of his own retirement plan. He's often the one who picks up the role as the logistical (and emotional) organizer of his siblings. And when his mom is discombobulated and overemotional, he's still often the one who offers a t-shirt-clad shoulder for mopping up tears.

Happy birthday, Boy#1. You could not have been a better trailblazer, and I'm laughing in your honor.

After Club

Last night was my turn to have club at our house.

That's what my mother always called it, whether it was her women's study club, the educational philanthropic club, or the music club. And when she said she was having club at our house, hooo-boy! My siblings and I needed to be ready to work hard without talking back.

We vacuumed and dusted and washed windows and hid everything that made the house look like actual people lived there, while Mom whipped up cream puffs and petit fours and all manner of delectable desserts. The dessert plates (with the special indentation for a coffee cup with a uselessly tiny handle) were pulled down from storage and washed.

Then we either disappeared upstairs when the ladies arrived, or (when we were old enough) we served desserts and refilled those ridiculous coffee cups.

These days hosting club is much less formal. When groups meet at the House on the Corner, I try to beat back some of the dust but there's no deep cleaning or window washing involved. Most of the time my friends get their dessert on a paper plate, and likely as not the dessert is purchased from the local coffee shop.

Last night, though, I tried a new recipe (justification for buying a springform pan) and served it on antique plates. I started collecting this pattern shortly after we got married, but my habit of buying a piece here and a piece there when I had an extra $15 for a goblet meant I had never accumulated enough to actually use them. Then a couple of weeks ago Husband and I were roaming around an antique store when I stumbled on a cabinet full of plates, tumblers, dozens of pieces I didn't even know existed. I carried a couple to the front counter.

"You know, there's no call at all these days for that pattern," the store owner said genially. "I'll give you as much as you want for a dollar a piece."*

At that price, even knowing that in the not-too-distant future an auctioneer will be yelling "SOLD" to a bid of pennies per piece, we came home with two boxes of the special dishware. It felt like a moment of elegance to serve club dessert to my friends on these plates, even though the coffee was served in regular mugs because we may be elegant but we are not idiots.

This morning I'm feeling a bit like the alstroemeria on the dessert table that suddenly and inexplicably folded halfway through the meeting. Tired, but still blooming in the lingering echo of laughter from a house full of delightful women.

My mom would know just what I mean.



*To my delightful women who were here last night: Yes, I know I told you they were a quarter a piece. In my self-congratulatory memory of the purchase they were, but when Husband asked me (in a slightly horrified tone) if I had admitted they were only a dollar a piece, my memory almost audibly corrected itself. And I informed him that women are much more impressed by a bargain than by the actual purchase.