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2003-05-21 - 10:29 p.m.

This has been the longest silence in my on-line journal since I began, almost a year ago. And like many things that generate their own energy through momentum, the longer I go without writing, the harder it becomes to span the gap. Last night, for example, I sat down at the computer with a free half hour and ended up playing pinball.

But then I went to bed and had a dream about it in which I was spinning a convoluted explanation of a life that included someone getting out of prison, shooting out windows with a gun and a strange entanglement with the cast of ER. Compared to that story, nothing much is going on at all..... Still, I feel the need to catch up, to account for the orbit of my life in the past weeks.

Since January Piper and I have devoted ourselves to the goal of surviving this stressful last semester of her master's degree. And the last few weeks were rough. She was exhausted with the effort of completing her final papers and portfolio while meeting job demands, and I was tired and discouraged with the constant drudgery of being the support staff. But we made it. Graduation happened. She walked across the stage in a square hat, all smiles. Even the ceremony, the formal and public recognition, meant more than we imagined it would. She was wined and dined and photographed, received cards and gifts, breathed a long sigh of relief.

I attended the graduation ceremony with her family and we were ushered to the very front row because her grandmother was in a wheelchair. One of the commencement speakers, trying for a little audience involvement, asked "all the spouses and partners" of the graduates to stand up and be recognized. There I was, sitting between her mother and stepfather, in the most conspicuous seats in the auditorium. And while her family is always very kind to me, in exchange we all share an unspoken fiction that I am just "there," like a distant cousin perhaps, or a friend of the family. I remained seated. The mothers and fathers are asked to stand up. Then the grandparents. And finally the friends.... after which the rest of the auditorium rises, me included. In the hierarchy of those to whom this graduation matters, I lose myself in a sea of others. But no one could possibly have cared more than I. It is a graduation of sorts for me, too, although I have yet to define what is ending and what will begin.

And the following day.....

We celebrate Mother's Day with a cookout at my Mother's house. She is never happier than when all of her family gathers there, noisily spilling out the doors and congregating on the multi-level deck, boys throwing a football in the yard. I played the role of chef, grilling burgers for sixteen, and everyone contributed carry-in dishes. Even my 22-year old nephew was cleaning up in the kitchen. "I don't want you to have a mess to clean up after we leave, Grandma." Mom enjoyed her gifts and cards, but I think it was the gathering she liked best.

By prior arrangement, Cary & I and Piper & her mother decided to "move" Mother's Day to the following Sunday to ease the hectic graduation/mother's day weekend. So this weekend (just passed) we cleaned and shined the house like we have not done all semester and served a festive brunch to Piper's mother and stepfather. And Sunday evening Cary came and picked me up for our Mother's day "date." Three years ago he started something that has become a tradition for us: he asked me out for a mother-son day.We had so much fun, it has become a yearly event. Even though we see and call each other frequently, those special one-on-one times are rare in our busy lives. This year we went to see the Lewis and Clark movie at the giant screen theatre and then to dinner at a wonderful Italian restaurant, complete with wine and lemon sorbet. We still fall back easily into the patterns of relationship we had when he was young-- we love to talk to each other, and can always find a hundred things to discuss, debate, or laugh about. As always, I end Mother's Day with a full-to-bursting heart, awed at the kind, intelligent, thoughtful person who is my son.

That brings us more or less to the present. I've been focusing the free hours of my life on the outdoors.... trying to plant, prune, fertilize, weed, water, trim, etc... in other words gain some modicum of control over our grounds. These are the halcyon days for gardening-- before the mosquitos are hatched. Any day now they will appear and a foray into the outdoors will become a desperate dash for cover. But so far it has been a cool, damp spring, and for some reason it has taken longer this year for the evil pests to arrive. In the meanwhile, I've been enjoying the magical growth of plant life in our gardens, and plotting new construction-- the fence, now begun, and new seats in the pergola.

Yesterday I took the day off to see to the disposal of the big pile of wood from the old fence. I had called a number for "Big Al's Hauling" and Big Al's, like most services, could not tell me exactly "when" they were coming, so I hung around the house, waiting for them to arrive. (Not that I minded.) And arrive they did, a rag-tag bunch, towing a trailer behind an old pickup, and incredibly expertly parallel parking the whole rig between two cars. Two men with grey beards and long grey hair under greasy caps got out of the truck. Big Al, true to his name, was rotund, in overalls and broken-down sneakers, while his accomplice was so skinny and bowlegged he looked like an old cowboy fallen on hard times. A pudgy young woman wearing tight shorts (Big Al's daughter, I think) completed the crew, and she and the thin man were caked with dirt from the neck down. Big Al was considerably cleaner, and as he approached I noticed he was holding something in one arm. It was a tiny, grey poodle puppy. While the crew loaded wood and Big Al supervised and arranged other hauling business on his cell phone, I played with the puppy. It had on a tiny purple collar with a tiny purple, bone-shaped name tag. It's name was Too-too. I introduced it to the Pipsqueek, but even the presence of a friendly white butt-sniffing playmate could not make the puppy take his eyes off of Big Al. I mentioned this to Big Al when I handed the pup over along with his check.

"Yeah".... Al drawls, a smile creeping over his face, despite his best efforts. "He's pretty much a one-man dog."

I love it when stereotypes break down.

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