Time and place

I’m sitting on my patio right now, 9:45 on a 10/10 Saturday morning. Really, it is just beautiful out here - bright sunshine, flawless clear blue sky, temperatures in the high 60s with a lovely breeze rustling the leaves on the trees, with cicadas chirping and birdsong and a dog barking here and there the only other noise. 

My younger son and I are the only people home right now, but that will change in a few hours. He’s still sleeping, because this is one of his last few sleep-in mornings for some time. We’re taking him back to school today, and class and swim practice will start on Monday. Summer always passes by so fast. It already feels like September out here. 

The third year of taking your youngest child to college is definitely much easier than the first. I remember the dread-filled days leading up to move-in day in 2023, and it’s not nearly so bad now. He takes his car to school now and comes home every so often; and of course, swim season starts soon, and I love college swim season the way some people love NFL football. The boys team is swimming against Duke and Boston College in Durham next month, and I booked our room weeks ago. Part of me can’t wait. The other part would like to turn the clock back a few months. Well, that second part wants to turn the clock back a full year because I’d like to relive an optimistic summer untainted by ICE raids and military patrols on the streets of DC. But you know what I mean. 

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It’s Sunday now, just about 24 hours later and I am once again out on my patio writing about pretty much nothing. The weather is different today - soft and overcast and almost cool. The breeze is still rustling, though, and I’m still hearing cicadas (much more muted) and birdsong. 

Our son moved in yesterday. His quad suite is quite similar to the suite he had last year, and he’s sharing it with the same crew, one of whom has been his roommate since freshman year. I was happy to see them. We helped with move-in and unpacking and arranging the room, and then we took the boys out for dinner and to the neighborhood Safeway so that they could stock up on supplies and snacks. We were exhausted when we arrived home at 10. And now it’s kind of sad to walk past his neat and empty room at home. I’ll get used to it because I always do and because I have to - after all, at some point, he’s going to leave home for good - but I do like having all my people at home under my roof. 

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I’ve been reading a lot lately, so my next post - I promise - will be less about my daily life amid the changing seasons and more about books. Preview: The Sum of Us (Heather McGhee), Iris in Winter (Elizabeth Caddell), The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde), and The Adventures of Miss Barbara Pym (Paula Byrne). Four weeks, three centuries, two countries - proving that I’m capable of leaving the house and getting out of my own head for five minutes, even if only in a book.