Away We Go: Just For Now
He is standing in the bathroom. My boy is just out of the shower, wrapped in a towel, hair still dripping onto the floor below. He’s grown; there’s a leanness stretching him a tiny bit every day. The transition from his legs to his ankles used to be indefinite, and now there’s an obvious joint.
He’s looking at himself in the mirror and making funny faces. It’s the kind of thing I might do if I was working really hard to channel my inner child and I was certain there was no one else in the zip code.
Then he starts to dance. Throwing limbs akimbo with not much regard for where or when. There’s no music, just a beat rolling around his head. I can barely get myself to dance when it’s my most favorite song and it’s late at night and I know no one in the vicinity. Sometimes not even if I’m at home by myself and I know a little hip shaking would loosen the hold my brain has over the course of the day.
“In these moments I get to see him in the purest form. I am grateful. I am heartbroken. ”
I want to dry my hair, he says. So I get the hairdryer, plug it in and hand it to him. The dancing begins anew as his head is cocked to the side and hot air starts changing the color of a few strands from brown to blonde.
He’s standing in the bathroom drying his hair and dancing like no one’s looking. I am hit with a wave of sadness. This is the son who asks “it this cool?” and looks with worry down at his clothes.
What he’s really asking is: am I acceptable? Do I fit? What should I change to make me OK?
I know the world will take so much from him. It will answer no to the first two questions and supply infinite options but no actual solution for the third. The dancing boy will not make it to the other side of life without covering up, halting his feet, changing his outfit, changing his mind, believing he’s insufficient.
There’s nothing I can do. This is the inevitable roughening of the edges that comes with longer bones and a bigger vocabulary and self-sufficiency. It’s what happened to me, and to his father, and to my ancestors, and all other humans here and gone.
In these few moments I get to see him in his purest form. I am grateful. I am heartbroken. I want it to last. I know it won’t. The fact that it’s fleeting is what made me pause and notice. The truth is that there aren’t many people who will get to experience him like this.
I am so lucky but it comes with a lump in my throat.
I move over to stand next to him and shake my hips a little too. Try to match his timing, Catch a draft of the warm air from the dryer. He looks at me in the mirror and smiles while he flips his hair to the other side.
After a minute he stops, turns it off and unplugs. I’m done, he says.
Not quite yet, I hope. But someday my dear.
Inspired by events in East Village, Tulsa, Oklahoma
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