Wildflower Lessons

          My older son, Andrew, and I spent last Wednesday together. He and his wife, Emily, were in California for his spring break from medical school in New York, where winter, as usual, is acquiescing to spring unwillingly. We have had the finest spring in the Central Valley that I can remember in my thirty-one years here: day after day has been perfect, sunny, clear, warm, unlike our usual quick spring that soon launches into the hot days of summer, with an occasional brief, chilly respite in April and May before summer sets in to stay, until sometime in October. It helps that daylight savings is now set two weeks earlier than in the past, the longer days prolonging the peaceful joy of spring. Andrew and I spent several hours driving through the foothills, taking in the lush green, the clouds of wildflowers, the cows and sheep and goats and their numerous offspring savoring the plentiful grasses. 

          I had not intended the drive to be so long, but I do not know the jagged Southern Sierra foothill roads well yet. Nor did we mind. As the car climbed, and the road narrowed and twisted, and the color of the hills changed from yellow to gold to white, with blue lupine in the ditches along the road, we talked intermittently, normal for us. With my younger son, Stephen, conversation usually flows easily and satisfyingly, but with Andrew, it is more halting. 

          I find myself studying my children now that, for the first time, I cannot see them on a whim. Until now, at least one was always within a couple of hours drive, and if the other was further afield, it was never for more than a couple of months. Last summer, with Stephen’s college graduation and employment and Andrew’s marriage and beginning medical school in New York, my sons were simultaneously removed from my daily life. 

          I, too, chose then to move, to live with my partner. In retrospect, I sometimes think this was an unwise decision, but then I imagine the frustration I might feel alone in my house, knowing I could not just pick up on the weekend and drive southwest for a day with Stephen or northwest for a day with Andrew. Our roles have all changed, theirs more easily, I imagine, full of adventure and newness, though I am sure it has not been one hundred percent peaches and cream. I find myself at times at a loss in my new role. There is nothing specific to do: no diapers to change, no activities to drive to, no school work to oversee, no tuition checks to write, no group of their friends to take to dinner. 

          I know they need me as much as ever, to know I am here and love and support them, no matter what. They still call, still show their love and trust, with questions about insurance, landlords, and recipes, and reports on their week. But the challenge seems somehow so much bigger. Did I set a good example in life for them to follow? I talked with them about the importance of loving the only brother you will ever have, who will love you as no one else can. I talked to them about the importance of communication. I talked to them about not being afraid to change paths, to take risks. But did I demonstrate any of this adequately?

          I think I have only begun to learn about myself again in the last two years, after a hiatus of perhaps thirty years, that included only intermittent times of lucidity. I attribute this to hormones, depression, lack of self confidence, a failed marriage, no community roots, minimal communication within my family, and the usual demands of parenting and careers. Awaking today with restless legs (which thankfully usually only occur at night when I calm them with Requip), a clenched jaw, and a sense of frustration, I took a long, hot bath, on Doug’s recommendation. I am so guilty of exactly what I protest in others: bottling up thought and emotion. As I read Bill Hayes’ fascinating The Anatomist, a biography of Henry Gray, body and mind relaxed. After a shower to wash my hair, I told Doug I was going to excuse myself from coffee with him and his daughter, Katie, and stay home to write this, instead. 

          I am only beginning, still, to learn to identify what I want to do and to do it without guilt or anger. I seem to have spent much of my life protesting that I am ignored, but unable to state a priori what it is I want, until I dissolve in frustration, like a two-year-old, as my siblings and then-spouse so often told me. Doug and I each wish deeply that our marriages had succeeded. We each carry a desire for our children to be strong, healthy, independent, despite the wounds their parents have inflicted. We each believe the wounds may have been deeper had we stayed married, and that we married for the wrong reasons. And yet, here are our four incredible children, who but for our previous partners, would not be here, and they are, all in all, healthy, strong, and independent. They are who they are, and, I think, have learned from their parents' mistakes. 

          When I tell my sons I am so impressed and so pleased by their communication with their partners, they respond it was obvious that their dad and I did not communicate. In college, between them, they changed majors, traveled abroad, spent vacations with friends rather than family, all of which pleased me. For each, their partner is one of the centers of their life now, and when I think of Andrew and Emily, Stephen and Jessie, I feel the comfort and peace of the seamless universe. 

          That is what I felt driving with Andrew through the foothills. It is the first day I have spent alone with him since he was married last summer. During my February visit to New York, I spent more time alone with Emily than I ever have, and we came to know each other better. It was a pleasure, not a challenge, as they so clearly adore and care for each other, and she is open, sincere, and tender. 

          What I think I know about my son is that his life experience to now, with its successes and disappointments, simplicities and complexities, has fertilized the miraculous combination of genes that is him to grow a young man who can enjoy with his mother, for an afternoon, the sensual pleasure of nature’s rebirth in spring. His mother, still thankfully growing, can know, without regret or wistfulness, that Emily is the woman to whom he turns with his deepest self and desires.