Thursday, October 06, 2005Train Platform: Postcard on the Edge of 13My oldest son and I have decided to take a train up to Old Town for dinner. To celebrate his 13th birthday tomorrow.We are waiting on the platform. It is one of those end-of-summer nights. Joyously warm, the way that only warm can feel when it has the faintest flavor of fall in the air. The slightest hint of bright chilly days to come. My son just got new glasses. I just got new lenses. There is a crescent moon in the sky, a sky is so clear that you can see the entire moon easily. The crispness of the moon is something neither of us have seen in a long time. It is achingly perfect, obscenely beautiful. A star, or satellite, or planet hovers above it. Spencer goes to the end of the platform to make the train come faster. I have given him this task and he performs it seriously. He tells me he sings rap songs while he's standing there. Me, I see a young man, poised, looking down the railroad tracks towards his future. Above him and to the right is the moon and star. The lights shine down on the empty landings and the tracks bending away into the darkness. The lighting is cinematic. The composition is Edward Hopper. The air is saturated with promise. My son is standing there. And like so many other things these days, I suddenly time travel through all the phases of my time with him: the deep nights of infancy, his first time on a swing. His essence. How I've known him for many lifetimes, and yet am always surprised and delighted by him. His difference from my other son, who delights and amazes me completely as well, in radically different ways. I hold us there on that platform. Praying with deep certainty that this moment of perfect equinimity will sustain us through the uncertain years ahead. # posted by Katherine Doughtie Nolan @ 10:44 PM  
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