This is a lightly edited repost of an essay I wrote for the Berkshire Edge on September 1, 2024.
It’s dedicated to all the disoriented parents out there this season of the quiet house.
I am sitting in my living room, where someone has taken the maroon ottoman from beside the coffee table and put it back next to its chair in Jim’s office. The card game deck, however, is still sitting here. If it had been up to me, the ottoman would have remained out of place, and the cards would remain upturned in four little piles for the next four months. That’s the state the kids — my three and my daughter’s boyfriend — left this place in on Thursday morning when I told them it was time to leave for the airport.
Cecelia had to get to her first semester of college.
Jim’s informal nickname for Cecelia is “Can We?” because that is her standard opener. Can we have a movie night with cousins? Can we go see the sunset and get Ayelada? Can we check on …
