Fifteen and quarantined
Dear Declan,
Today you are fifteen years old.
According to number theory, 15 is lucky. I don’t really understand what makes it so — something about sets and sieves, but maybe we should take that at, well… face value. It’s the atomic number of phosphorus — the fertilizing, fire-sparking element first discovered in human urine by a 17th century alchemist in pursuit of an elixir of immortality (the philosopher’s stone). It’s a quarter of an hour in our measurement of time, and the age when Louis Braille invented the Braille system. One could drive from the northern edge of Scotland to the South of Spain on European route E 15, and — holy heck — you really could soon, because you’re old enough to begin driving lessons. It’s the number you would call in an emergency in Pakistan, the number of players on a team in rugby and all four of the major Gaelic games (like hurling), and the name of a song about being a high school freshman by Taylor Swift.
And here we are, your freshman year already over, cut short by a global pandemic. What would have been a time of final projects, exams, and — for you — concerts and recitals, is now day after day in a house with your mom, stepdad (two people who, by grace, are able to work from home), and two elderly dogs. We’re growing weary of words that begin with “un,” like “unprecedented” and “uncertain.” You were learning all about viruses in biology class when school shut was down — explaining so much to me about the nature of a deadly virus in the same family as the common cold, which humans do not develop an immunity to. I felt fortunate that the need to shelter in place was something I didn’t have to talk you into, but also a little freaked out by the scientific insights you offered me. One night, after you explained what happens to people when they are intubated, I had to ask you to save virus talk for breakfast because I couldn’t handle it at bedtime, even with the help of my weighted blanket.
Fourteen began with your graduation from middle school, when you earned the band director’s award for all of your hard work on the euphonium. We got to take a trip to Colorado to visit your now-stepsister (that you lobbied for intensely) and were ever the sport about adventuring in. You are still bent on returning to summit Pike’s Peak. It was cloudy on the day when we were nearby, and your mom was not handling the high altitude well at all as it was.
I was a real grouch a few times, actually, feeling my way through all the garbage a mom feels at each new stage of letting go. I read books that tell me that it’s an evolutionary feature for your teenage brain to not want to do what I might suggest. You need to reject me for a while for the sake of your own survival and emergence as a person, even if it’s only about settings on the family camera. You possess a self-awareness and a clarity in observing your mom that has kept this painful passage from ever feeling destructive. You aren’t mean-spirited, even when you get angry.
Before your first year of high school began, I had to adjust to spending more time apart from you than I ever have before. The onset of marching band meant that I was lucky if I got to spend more than a few minutes talking to you — but it clearly made you so happy. You found more of your people. Your arms got strong carrying that marching baritone as your height ascended to six feet.
I love watching the ways you use the language of music to connect with others and center yourself. I am so happy that you have that. I never got tired of hearing the marching band play Debussy through the season, and my heart gets so full when I sit at the top of the stairs and listen to you practice Beethoven on piano now. I am so damn grateful for the overwhelming feeling of amazement you have given me on so many of the days of your life. How many times can a mom say — and feel — “wow?”
Larry and I got married officially in January, thinking we’d have a real ceremony this summer, but we lived in such a different reality four months ago. I think of you in the Justice Center that day as you watched your new stepdad and two grown stepbrothers move through the metal detector. I asked you what you thought. “About you two getting married?” you replied. Then a smile broke across your face. “I’m pretty sure it’s going to work out.” As the three of us have moved through more than nine weeks of sheltering in place together, I take as much refuge in your simple affirmation on that day as I might in any ritual. Even as stress, fear, and depression may manifest in any of us on a given day, there is a core of love, kindness, and mutual respect in our lives that makes me feel so safe.
We don’t know much about what July will look like, let alone the rest of high school, or the future of the world. I thank the stars that we’ve been so involved in a faith that asks us to keep returning to our breath and the experience of the present moment.
You are no stranger to uncertainty about lots of things, except, I hope, knowing how very loved you are.
I love you infinity,
Mom
I used to blog about motherhood regularly, and began writing annual birthday letters to my son when he was three, as kind of a memory/baby book. This year, as always, printed with his editing and permission.
The whole collection of letters is here.
