The boy is officially a high school graduate. And I'm proud to say, that throughout what Cakers calls Cameron's Marching Party, I only cried once. Briefly.

I know. It surprised me too. Maybe it was the impersonal feel of a football stadium, on a cool, windy night. Or maybe I got it all out at the Baccalaureate. Or maybe it was due to the following distractions:

1) The Cakers following the previously drummed into her head agreed upon plan, to keep all talk to a whisper. While it was great that she was being such a good listener, the content of a toddler's whisper, in a crowded football stadium, is hard to discern,and the cause of no small amount of frustration. It's even more difficult to hear a toddler's whisper, when said toddler is simultaneously kicking up a racket on the aluminum bleachers in front of her. (An unforeseen behavior, and therefore, untouched by the previously established verbal contract. That Girl Ain’t From ‘Round Here. Mark my words.)

2) Just before the Marching Party begins, my mother pulls from her purse, a plastic storage bag containing a creamy, light-yellow liquid, and holds it up for all to see. Amidst some giggles, she loudly announces that in this bag is a partially melted, half-stick of butter, recently borrowed from my sister. "I wondered where that bag went. I looked everywhere, when I got home....."

::I could write a book about the stuff in my mother’s purse. For now, it’s enough to say that the topic has been a source of local entertainment, for years.::

3) Fighting the urge to grab my husband and drag him down below, for a rompin' circumstance under the bleachers.

Huh? Well, grab your favorite lust object/toy and go read this this poem, which was read by a student, as part of the graduation ceremony.

I was kind of surprised that this morsel of erotica passed administrative approval. A bit of a gaffe, for a school with a nationally recognized academic reputation. The same high school that gave us the likes of Chri*s VanAl*sburg (The Po*lar Ex*press) and the creator of Amerikan Pye (don’t want no local googlers ‘round here. I might have mentioned here before, that I live in Ea*st Great Fa*lls and my son attended E*st Great F*lls High).

So, what made da momma cry, at her boy’s educational emancipation ceremony? Just a bunch of talk.

When the processional first came into the stadium, the line was stalled for a few minutes, as the cadence was established*. Because they were all dressed alike, it was hard for me to lock on to my spawn, at first. But soon enough, I recognized a familiar movement, within the sea of gently bobbing, blue mortar boards. It was my boy, all right. Talking.

Talking to the left and talking to the right. In fact, sandwiched in line between his two best friends, he was in conversation-hog heaven. Some of the other students were talking too, but discreetly. You had to look real close to see it. But not my boy. He was a well-capped, walking gesture.

Why would a talking teen make me cry? Because at every parent teacher conference I attended, over the past 13 years, I heard about my boy’s mouth. It wasn’t a bad mouth, or a sassy mouth. Just a fully engaged mouth. Always.

Seeing him there with his best buds, in full chatty caricature, during the last moments of (in?) his official capacity as an educational ward of the state, brought me a tear, and a snot bubble.

But for the rest of the evening, my emotional control was like a bag-o-buttah: Lookin’a mess, but otherwise fully contained.
Eminem and the Drama Mama
The Graduate and His Mother


Post Post Note: Although I haven't been posting, I have been chronicling the mother's journey toward matriculation and the ongoing pain of the Open Wound House preparations. Originally, today's post contained nearly every thought I've had on all these matters, over the past week. But, my editorial instinct got the better of me and I commenced to chopping. Maybe, later, k?

*I almost cried, watching the teacher in charge of spacing the marchers. He held each student with a hug around the waist, followed by a properly timed, gentle shove into the processional.

Hug followed by shove.
A representation.
Of something currently familiar.

Labels: From My Loins, Passages, Tree From Where I Fell