Fourteen years ago today, I gave birth to a 10 lb 11 oz boy in a hospital that no longer exists. It was demolished about six years ago and in its place are yuppie townhomes with red Spanish tile roofs and windows in any shape but rectangle.
Sometimes we tease him and tell him that HE doesn't exist, that this is all a figment of his imagination and then of course, he has to remind me that if he didn't exist then he would have no brain to imagine with and then he continues to outwit me with pseudo-physics that he couldn't have read in a book, but seem just as logical. He impresses me.
He's always been a cuddler. When he was two, he would come into my bed with me in the morning and stroke my hair. "Mama," he'd say. "It's time to get up." I would look at the clock and it would be around six. My body said sleep, but my heart said get up and play "cars" on the couch for an hour, make breakfast and then resume "cars" for another hour, walk to the park and play "cars" in the sand and pine needles and then come home and put him down for his nap. He would fall asleep pushing Hot Wheels around on the pillow next to his head. He dreamt of cars.
Not much has changed in that respect. Today, his dream, I mean, OUR dream is to buy an old Datsun 280Z, (kind of like the bronze colored one that we used to own when we lived in those crappy apartments in Roseville off of Santa Clara) and fix it up. We don't know where we're going to park it. We're trying to persuade my husband that we need add on to the driveway for the sports car, but he's still not convinced that we're really committed to the plan. In our hearts, we know that nothing's going to stop us.
Everyday, I thank the powers that move all the beautiful and ugly things around in this world for my family. They are what does it for me. As much as I have my own dreams of becoming an screenwriter, or owning a studio where I make my own glass beads, showing my photos in a gallery, or writing the mediocre, not-so-American novel, I realize these dreams could never happen without the love and support of my family. Wait...don't go! I'm really not all sappy. I'm just feeling a little emo because my Christian's 14!
Today, he's with his father in Grass Valley, so I called him to wish him a Happy Birthday. I asked him, "Do you feel old?" He thought for a second and then said, "It's not much different, 13 from 14." Then he asked me the same question. I slyly changed the subject. I didn't want to give him the satisfaction.
