This Wednesday, my son will celebrate his tenth birthday. So, my daughter is graduating from high school this year, and my son is no longer a little boy. As a person who doesn't deal with change that well, the next eight or nine months are going to be very rough.
This afternoon, we had a birthday party for my son, some of his friends, and family at a Virtual Reality Arcade. It was a great time. However, I did learn one thing: I cannot do VR games. I put on a head seat, and, within 30 seconds, I felt like I'd been on a roller coaster for about four hours. Cold sweat, nauseated, dizzy. That feeling pretty much hung on for the rest of the party.
There is a thick fog hugging the air right now. If the temperature drops a few degrees, I would say that snow was on the way. Instead, it's simply bone-drilling damp. It looks like the scene when Father Merrin arrives in The Exorcist. Cue the scary music.
I'm pretty exhausted. So's my wife. My son won't admit it, but he looks pretty whipped, as well. I have a feeling that we're all going to be crashing fairly early this evening. When I get home, I plan on getting in my pajamas, making myself a special hot chocolate, and preparing a lesson plan. Then maybe work on a new poem. A Halloween poem.
Saint Marty is thankful tonight for butterscotch schnapps.
A poem for my son's birthday party . . .
Rite of Passage
by: Sharon Olds
As the guests arrive at our son’s party
they gather in the living room—
short men, men in first grade
with smooth jaws and chins.
Hands in pockets, they stand around
jostling, jockeying for place, small fights
breaking out and calming. One says to another
How old are you? —Six. —I’m seven. —So?
They eye each other, seeing themselves
tiny in the other’s pupils. They clear their
throats a lot, a room of small bankers,
they fold their arms and frown. I could beat you
up, a seven says to a six,
the midnight cake, round and heavy as a
turret behind them on the table. My son,
freckles like specks of nutmeg on his cheeks,
chest narrow as the balsa keel of a
model boat, long hands
cool and thin as the day they guided him
out of me, speaks up as a host
for the sake of the group.
We could easily kill a two-year-old,
he says in his clear voice. The other
men agree, they clear their throats
like Generals, they relax and get down to
playing war, celebrating my son’s life.
