We’ve reached the time of year where we can open the windows to let the cool fresh morning in. We’ll need to close up mid-day when we start sweating; the air conditioner feels glorious when that happens. For now, I hear the whir of grasshoppers, the caw of crows, and the chirp of songbirds.
When I walked out of my bedroom this morning, my heart did a little dance to see both of our children’s doors closed. For four years now, our son’s door has stood open while he’s been away at college. For two, our daughter’s has. Their closed doors mean they are both here, sleeping the summer sleep of not-yet-adults, my children.
I’m upstairs in the reading room at Shakespeare and Company while Owen shops downstairs. It’s quiet up here. The walls are lined with wooden bookshelves filled with English language hardbound books that aren’t for sale. Next to me is a reading nook, like a window seat in the corner, with a red velour cushion on it. I could sit there with my back against the honey wood wall and read if I were reading instead of writing. At the end of the hall in the room across from me, facing the window that looks out over the Seine and Notre Dame Cathedral, is a wooden table with an ancient typewriter with circle keys.
The floor is old cracked hexagonal tiles, brick red and faded terra cotta, wonderfully worn.The ceiling is wood beams, old old with gaps in the grain from swelling and shrinking. The ceiling is low. On the wall in the stairwell are black and white photos of authors: Virginia Woolf, Daphne du Maurier, Sylvia Plath. Maurice Sendak. James Baldwin. Other authors, like Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, are painted in line illustrations in the stairwell beneath the photos. A piano sits in the corner. Photos of more authors adorn the walls around it. Walt Whitman. Toni Morrison.
Painted over the door is “Be not inhospitable to strangers lest they be angels in disguise.”
Painted on the stairs, “I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness the astonishing light of your own being.”
–May 31, 2025, 3:20pm
On our first full day in the city, I got to spend time alone with each person in my family doing something cool in Paris.
My husband and I were up before the kids, as we always are. We walked the Montmartre neighborhood again, this time in the cool of morning before the streets were clogged with tourists. We climbed the more than 200 steps to Basilique du Sacré-Cœur while runners with hydration vests ran down the steep cobbles beside the stone stairs. From the basilica, which sits at the top of Montmartre hill, you can see the whole of Paris.
After our walk, he and I had pastries and coffee at a little boulangerie around the corner, Chez Carla, where as I stood in line, I watched as they slid batches of fresh croissants off a pan into the display case. The croissants made a sound like stuffed dry leaves as they tumbled, flaky light and substantial at the same time.
Once the kids were awake, the four of us tried to figure out how to manage all of our desires. We each had a different One Thing we wanted to do in Paris. My husband wanted to head towards the river, maybe see Notre Dame. Our son’s one thing was the Shakespeare and Company book store. Our daughter wanted to shop, but her real one thing was to see the Eiffel Tower at night. I wanted to do it all. Plus Luxembourg Gardens.
We committed to shopping since our daughter’s time with us was limited.
We ventured out of our neighborhood, down Rue Marguerite de Rochechouart towards the Seine. We weren’t 5 minutes from our apartment when I grabbed a photo of what delighted me as a quintessential Parisian scene: flower boxes and window shutters above a fromagerie (cheese shop), with a chic woman walking through the frame just as I snapped the shot.
On our meanderings, our daughter and I stopped into a multi-level Zara next door to the Palais Garnier Opera House. The time we spent waiting in a sweltering line for sweltering fitting rooms ultimately paid off — she found a dress she loved. While we were in Zara, my husband and son sat on the palace stairs and listened to a street musician. Our son said later that that was one of his favorite moments from the trip, just sitting there taking in the guitar player, the busy streets, the palaces.
We walked by ritzy shops and through Jardin des Tuileries before standing on one of the more than a dozen bridges that crosses the Seine. At this point, the Left Bank, where Shakespeare and Company is, was right there, just a few steps further. I knew our son really wanted to go to the book store. I asked, do you want to go now? I do. We can split up.
So we split up. He and I walked the mile or more along the Seine, past the book vendors that I’ve read about so many times in so many books, including Hemingway’s A Movable Feast from his time in Paris more than100 years ago.
When we arrived, there was a line to get into the shop. There were lines for everything that day. The sidewalks were packed. The restaurants and cafés and museums and shops were packed.
Once inside, Shakespeare and Company was not packed; the purpose of the line was to control how many people are in the store at any given time. Once you’re in, you can breathe and feel the coziness of being in a really special book store, where beloved English language authors have found kindred spirits in their time in Paris, borrowed literature when they couldn’t afford to buy it, leaned on the shop owner to find rare books; they’ve read, written, thought, and found shelter.
I loved being with our son there. I loved that I got to go with him and experience it together. He picked up several books, put some back, picked up more, put more back. He’d brought his backpack so he could carry any books he bought. Ultimately, he took home The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky and Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami. I bought Devotionals by Mary Oliver. We said yes when asked if we wanted our books stamped with the Shakespeare and Company stamp.
After the book store, we waited in the leafy cover of the Marché aux Fleurs (flower market) for my husband and daughter. Our son wanted to go back to the apartment. Our daughter wanted to shop more.
I went with our daughter, even though I was hot and hungry.
As soon as we started walking in the sun, she wilted, too. I saw a brasserie with tables in the shade, Le Sarah Bernhardt, and when I asked about a seat, the waiter took us around to a much better set of tables — we’d gone to the quiet side, and he took us around front where the people-watching was spectacular. We got seats at a little round table outside, facing the bustling Place du Châtelet, and sighed with pleasure to get off our feet.
I convinced our daughter that what she wanted was an Aperol Spritz. “They’re so refreshing on a hot day.” I got one, too. Our waiter was fun and friendly, full of smiles in in his tanned and wrinkled face. He brought us olives, and ice for our water (we were hot and I misunderstood him when he asked “still?” for our water, and I said, “Yes, chilled please.”)
Annabelle and I refreshed ourselves in the shade. We sipped our Aperol Spritzes and iced water, shared a caprese salad, and watched the fantastic style on display on the cobbled sidewalks in front of us. We commented on all the fashion we saw, what we liked, “Ooh, I love those pants,” “Look at those shoes!” , “That bag is spectacular,” “I like whatever this trouser thing is some of the guys are doing,” “I love how everyone uses color,” “Look how she pulls that off.” She talked about how refreshing it is that all the college girls where she’s studying abroad don’t wear the same things as each other like they do at home — women have their own style and wear what they wear because they like it, because they put it together, because it’s them. They don’t just wear whatever they’re supposed to wear so that they fit in. She admires the confidence and is inspired by it. And she loves that people actually care about style.
My edges were relaxed and fuzzy after the Aperol Spritz, and I felt wonderfully happy. We were fortified for another round of shopping after our rest and refreshment, and so we were off to Bershka, a store we don’t have at home, and where she found success and bought dresses and tops.
I was so happy to have that time alone with our daughter, and before that, with our son, and before that, with my husband, in this beautiful city. Our first morning at a café with coffee and croissants with my husband, appreciating Shakespeare and Company with our son, and Aperol Spritzes and people watching with our daughter were three of my favorite moments in our time in Paris.
In ten days, we will move our daughter into her dorm room for her first year of college. A week later, our son will return to his apartment for his third. I’m a little bit numb. Time is passing both slowly and quickly as we approach these goodbyes. Mostly I go through my days not thinking about it. Then the reality of it rushes in and the next thing I know, my chest feels crushed, my heart aches, I’m proud and sad and scared all at once, and all of my emotions leak out through my eyes.
Our kids can’t wait. I’m not worried about them. I will miss them, but they will be happy as clams. It’s my husband and me I’m worried about. Will we be lonely? Will we be bored? Will we suddenly become old without our kids here to keep us young?
My husband and I will be alone again for the first time in 21 years. In our younger years, we daydreamed about the day when the kids moved out and we’d be free to do whatever we want. In recent years, we realized, hang on, these are cool people and I want them in my life. They’re independent now and don’t need me so much; I do have freedom. They don’t need to leave.
But leave they will. And, with their dishes all over the kitchen counter in the mornings, crumbs and crumpled napkins all over the table, and piles of laundry in the laundry room, we’re coming back around to what it will be like when they’re gone.
We’ll eat what we want, when we want, without worrying about whether everyone likes the meal we’re making. Maybe we won’t even make meals! Maybe I’ll eat a bagel with peanut butter and honey for dinner! We’ll travel. We’ll take weekend trips without worrying about leaving the kids behind. We’ll ride our bikes together. We’ll visit the kids at college and take them out to eat. We’ll send them pictures of the cats being cute.
I’ll do things I love so that I can fill the space of them being gone. I’ll write. I’ll read on the couch. I’ll sit on the back deck to watch my garden and listen to birds. I’ll plant mums in the fall, when leaves are changing colors and the air is crisp and the kids are going to college football games on the weekends. I’ll drink coffee and do my Wordle and Connections, buy new journals, relax in the evenings with nobody depending on me for anything.
We’ll spruce up the house to make it feel fresh and not just like the same place but emptier. Maybe paint some walls, buy some art, rearrange some furniture. We’ll cook when we want to, rather than because we have to. We’ll listen to music. Maybe I’ll bake. I’ll text with the kids to see how they’re doing. I’ll tell my my daughter when I get boba and am thinking of her, and I’ll tell my son when the blackberries are good at Kroger. We’ll ask what they’re listening to these days. How their classes are. Who they’re hanging out with, what kind of stuff they do when they’re not in class or studying – volleyball? Swimming? Live music? What’s their favorite place to eat? Is their place the hangout, or do they go somewhere else?
We had two truckloads of mulch delivered yesterday. A huge pile in the driveway blocks the garage. A second pile awaits me at the top of the hill out back.
A bolt fell out of our wheelbarrow yesterday; I fear it won’t survive this year’s mulch-spreading. It’s been rickety for two or three years now, and I keep limping it along, replacing bolts and its fat little tire. I’m sad about its death throes because I love our wheelbarrow. It’s the perfect size and shape for the jobs I want it to do, and last time I looked at our hardware stores, all the wheelbarrows were way beefier and deeper than I want. Our little red wheelbarrow wasn’t an option anymore.
I’m on my annual gardening vacation this week. I’m restless to get out there and start spreading the mulch, but right now, it’s too cold. Snow flurries drift among pear and cherry blossoms. The cats are curled up in the heated beds we got them this winter. I’m in cozy sweatpants and a thick hooded sweatshirt after my swim. I guess it’s not too terrible to sit here and write by the window, sipping hot coffee from the spring tulip mug our daughter made me in her ceramics class. My fingers ache from three days of pruning, shearing, digging, and grasping, so it’s probably okay to give them a break for a couple of hours.
Yesterday, since I didn’t have the mulch yet, I cut back about half of a meadow patch where we let the grass grow tall just to see what would happen. What happened is that one invasive ornamental grass — Miscanthus (silvergrass) — took over. I love its bronze tassels in autumn, but the grass grows aggressively, and it’s stems are thick and woody like bamboo, making it hard to trim or remove, and the pretty bronze tassels are not worth the mess the grass makes when I try to cut it back. I spent a lot of yesterday digging up clumps of this grass and preparing an area on the hill for the mulch to be dumped.
This gardening vacation is exhausting physical work, which is great because it’s helping me work off all the schnitzels, beer, and cake I ate last week, but I can’t do it for 8 hours straight every day. Yesterday, I took a break from digging up grass clumps to make banana nut muffins. I wanted them to be ready when our daughter came home from school. It’s been almost ten years since I was a stay-at-home mom, and our daughter is in her final year of high school. Our son has already moved out, and she will leave to go to college in August. This is my last chance to bake treats for when she gets home from school.
Baking the muffins for her filled me up. It made me feel warm and happy. When she yelled “Hey Mom!” across the yard when she got home from school, I told her there were fresh muffins, and her face lit up. She said it was the best news she’d had all day. When I came up after paying the mulch guy, she’d already eaten two.
Oof, that’s hard to think about. I’ve been going through baby pictures to send off to the school and the swim team for end-of-the-year slideshows for the seniors, and it’s an emotional roller coaster. I’m filled with such joy when I see our kids’ chubby smiling faces in their baby pictures, and to see them so happy now, and I’m gutted by the passage of time, and that my babies are now adults, and I will never hear their sweet toddler voices or squeeze their sweet baby chub ever ever again. They’ve grown up. They drive and go to concerts and play Euchre with us. They still love any and all home-baked treats, though, and surprising our daughter with the muffins was the highlight of my day.
It felt wonderful to be a stay-at-home mom again if just for a day. I tried to savor the moment and not to get too sad about what it meant in this long string of endings. I was actually okay until I started writing about it today. Especially because the writing is mixed with my very obvious aging, and time’s march towards the ending phases of life. My whole body aches. I am confronted by the fact that I’m not young anymore, our kids are moving out, and in five short months, they’ll both be gone after sharing space and food and time with them for the past 20 years. I guess the good news is that we tend to get happier after mid-life; age 50 is the trough on the U-bend of happiness*. I can still bake them rolls and cookies, muffins and scones, cakes and pies and cinnamon rolls when they come home for breaks.
The sun is trying to peak out. It shines golden on our greening grass for a moment, then the grey clouds cover it again and the world darkens. Snowflakes swirl outside the window. My coffee cup is empty. I guess I’ll fill it again, then draw. It’ll be warm after lunch, and then I can go out and spread mulch. I hope the wheelbarrow and I make it.
*Not-surprisingly, the U-shaped theory of happiness is not 100% accepted, but I like the idea. I first encountered it in the novel Wellness by Nathan Hill, which is excellent and is probably my favorite book I’ve read so far this year.
Our living room is a disaster. On the day after Christmas, I’m always ready to be done with it all so we can have our space back. Everyone else likes to keep the tree around for a while, though, so I guess I’ll continue tripping over furniture for another week.
I used to think Christmas kind of lost its magic once you’re not a kid anymore, or once your own children grow up. This year made me rethink that, though. Our kids are 20 and 18 now. Though they still get excited for Christmas, they acknowledge it’s not the same as when they were little, when the whole year revolved around this holiday.
In the past week, they’ve frequently said, “I’m bored” as they waited for Christmas to arrive. The difference now is that when they’re bored, the things they like to do to get unbored are things we, the parents, the grownups, also like to do.
This is a turning point in our lives as parents! Over this break, we’ve played many hands of Euchre (the moment I’ve been waiting for for 10 years). We’ve watched The Nightmare Before Christmas and The Muppet Christmas Carol. We’ve talked about books, TV shows, and movies, our son’s college life, our daughter’s college hopes. We’ve sat in the living room, each doing our own thing, in comfortable quiet. We’ve taken turns controlling the stereo to play music. We gave each other thoughtful gifts that made each other happy. We’ve laughed a lot. After opening presents, we went for a hike to get out of the house. During the break, the kids made cookies together like they did when they were toddlers, except that now, they didn’t need my guidance; they did it all themselves, together, without me even being in the kitchen. I shared pictures with them of then and now.
We’ve eaten cinnamon rolls, pecan pie, cherry pie, rum balls, gingerbread cutouts, peanut butter blossoms, snowballs. We’ve drunk mulled pomegranate and cranberry juice, sugar cookie cocktails, hot cocoa with amaretto and marshmallows, and spiked coffee. Our parents sent us cheeses, cured meats, and smoked salmon, which we ate on Christmas Eve with homemade baguettes, and my husband tried a new menu on Christmas day that I can’t wait to eat leftovers of today: pork roast with an apple-sage relish, garlic mashed potatoes, fresh broccoli gratin, roasted carrots, and a holiday salad with kale, fried shallots, Brussels sprouts, radishes, and almonds.
The kids have loved and appreciated it all, even though Christmas doesn’t necessarily mean big surprises or the fun toy they’ve been hoping for all year. I’ve loved and appreciated it all, too. I love hanging out with them. They’re my favorite people. This Christmas feels like it was less about the stuff (though we did all like the stuff, too!) and more about just hanging out and having fun together.
Butterfly Mind 