120 days, 120 miles

Crash and The Boy are off. Crash is back to work, for a short stint at least, and The Boy is off to graduate school at Large University Math Department. Our nest is once again empty.

Crash arrived here in mid-March, his job having evaporated, his apartment sublet. We made up the guest room for him, and he organized us. The glass board in the hallway became the call board with the weekly dinner and baking schedule on it and everyone's "call times" on it. Classes, recording sessions, meetings. The signs of the times on our doors: "Meeting in progress." "Recording!" "Door closed to keep cat out."

He left us far more organized than when he arrived. My basement pantry is sorted. The basement and garage organized. My kitchen cabinets! Nothing like someone who is a  professional stage manager to organize your process and your props.

It was a mixed blessing, to have my adult son back with us. I treasured all those hours tackling cooking projects with him, the random conversations. The planters on the back porch he helped me plant are a riot of blooms. But this time meant his professional life was in stasis, certainly nothing I could have wished for him. So after 120 days, we got into my Mini and drove 120 miles to a job in Brooklyn. A suitcase, a bag of groceries and his backpack and he was off.  I'm grateful for both the coming and the going.

And then I drove 120 miles back. Through a nightmare tangle of traffic. And in a moment of madness, Google routed me from Brooklyn across Manhattan to the Holland Tunnel, only to bring me to an intersection where you could see the entrance to the tunnel directly ahead, but not get into it. There was a (permanent) barrier. Forced to turn left with a pack of other presumably misled people, the re-routing said it would add 30 more minutes to my drive to circle around to the actual entrance. But at the next intersection, a kind NYPD traffic cop rolled his eyes, stopped two lanes of traffic and waved me right into the onramp to the tunnel. My gratitude was without bounds. 

Meanwhile The Boy was packing a UHaul with a vintage blackboard (math, you need a good board to think on), his trusty KitchenAid and a new queen bed. Between finishing a master's degree and a two year high school teaching stint and the start of grad school, he's been baking for social change. The local radio did a piece on his bake sale, part of series on Philly's grit and grace. 

Grit and grace and gratitude. Words to live by.