trains, (hydro?)planes, and automobiles...

It is late afternoon. Soon we will return to Gabe's house on campus and scoop him up for dinner in town, New London. What am I observing after his first 3 weeks away? (3 weeks...not a long time, is it?) He seems clean, and their dorm room--chock full with 3 boys--is NOT abysmally messy. Even Gabe's stuff isn't abysmally messy. I'll solicit his impression of where he stands on the privilege stratum (a leveling system whereby a steady hand on the self-responsibility wheel will move you up a step) at dinner. We'll eat Indian, or maybe Thai.

For now, Jeff and I have retired to our Inn down the road in Niantic. This room has windows and marina views on 3 sides, sea breezes, and is an eminently satisfactory place to recoup after plenty of driving.

I've asked myself if this is a crazy trip from the planning stage to now, in the thick of it. Three lodging stops for the core goal of checking in with the kid, barely a month into his semester. But there's more to it for me. Jeff doesn't know where we are from one minute to the next, but he goes with the program...nary a complaint...only wondering occasionally if it might be time to eat. If we stay out of teeming throngs (malls, let's say,) I can keep him on a loose enough rein that he's happy and one place is as good as another.

But I have a sense that we're reaching the end of the time we can do this. That this season--this time we can travel--will end with an undeniable solstice, whether I like it or not. Every so often, a tell-tale leaf falls, and one just did. Gordon told me about it. Happened just a couple days ago when Jeff was with him at Helen's house in NY, during Wade's visit. An almost complete reunion of the Clement siblings. It was early morning, Helen's family room. Jeff looked at Gordon (the brother with whom he's been business partners for two decades,) and, with some concern, said "Who are you?" When Gordon gently revealed his identity Jeff relaxed visibly, chuckled, and sat down. But this was new. When, I wonder, will he be asking me the same thing?

Jeff is wearing his MedicAlert/Safe Return "sport band" i.d. without notice. I slipped it on next to the watch he can't read, muttering something about health insurance, and he nodded as if to give distracted assent. I don't believe he's paid a whit of attention to it since.

Now we'll go seek vittles with the newly-fledged college boy, and tomorrow Jeff and I will stop mid-way down the Atlantic Coast of New Jersey. I will point to things that would interest him. A few, he will look at; most he will stare obliquely past. Other things I will not point out, because they are of interest to me, and I'll tell myself all about them in the running dialog me and I have.

Right now, I am telling myself that there are a heap-load of boats docked at this marina in the Niantic River. And that--300 or so yards that-a-way, out the southern window--three Amtrak trains have hooted and rumbled by. I will not have trouble sleeping here. Gabe could have picked a worse spot to endure two semesters of maturing in exile.