October 13, 2012

It’s my son’s birthday, and he is in Paris, or Poland briefly, but not here. He has no phone where I can call and sing as I have done every year since his birth. Mid-day, in house-prep mode, I finally, at the last minute, paint over the impromptu growth chart penciled on the kitchen doorframe– remembering decades of triumphant children thrilled to see how much they’ve grown. But tomorrow is the Open House, and this place where he and his sister were born and raised is slipping inexorably toward my past. So the glorious rich creamy orange of the kitchen woodwork replaces the fading pencil lines. It is hard not to be sad today.

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