I Throw Handfuls of Time

Theme song: I Don't Know Why

Fifteen Octobers since my young son was born and I walk on feet that hurt now in a way they didn't then. That's a bare truth I'd rather not tell, let alone know to be true.

The quiet streets are global warming gorgeous, and I think how September, October, and November are our prettiest months here in paradise. They have been for as long as I can remember; the sole exception being the occasion of my son's birth, which took place on a night streaked with hard rain.

Beautiful falls are why I chose September to be married, though weather being fickle, the day was coastal and covered. Good for taking pictures that have long since lost their original meaning. That's to be expected.

Looking at the vibrant blue sky, waving at an old dog resting in an open doorway, considering the results of someone else's decision to plant a eucalyptus on their privately owned patch of sidewalk, I start to throw handfuls of time at the wall to see what will stick.

I do remember walking with my son strapped to my chest, savoring the fresh, the green, and the rain, but I'm pretty sure that was December. Maybe even January.

There was the first October of my divorce, remembered for enduring a surreal birthday party in the Sunset on a day perhaps equally as vibrant as this one is. My then husband's lover did not attend, and we held an impromptu parade. Everyone said how good my husband was with children, which does recall another birthday party, painful to remember, held just outside AT&T Park on yet another gorgeous fall day.

That was the birthday we invited my son's whole class to play baseball. The adults were drinking beer, and I looked on in frozen awe as my son's father offered him a beer, which my son hid by turning his back on the group. His father told him he did not have anything to hide, begging the question of which was one was the more adult. My son was then five.

And then there was the October, or maybe it was the November, that I shared with a French lover. Romance and the thrill of having a French lover reminded me generally of why I have always favored fall as we sat under the sparkling trees in my back yard.

Three falls later, I found myself at the end of that romance, wanting to stand alone to do the work I had set my life to do: raise my boys to be men who notice, at least occasionally, the seasons. It was sunny, that fall, too, although a little hazy.

There have been other falls, I know. This is the 46th of them, it's true, but I do not at the moment recall them. I don't tend to remember much. My inner life is more a collection of images, thoughts, and preferences than it is a collection of memories.

With so few memories behind me, mostly all I have is warm, soft now and this question: Is this little handful all that sticks when I throw time?

What I'm left with is the sense that I will soon be the woman I have been becoming.