thresholds

Will and Don just went out the door to practice driving.  The dogs and I watched through the blinds of the side door windows.  After a few minutes I left my post to come in here and write.  Now Molly came into my room crying, nudged my elbow with her wet nose and padded out again to cry by the window.  I know how she feels.  Watching Will saunter down the stairs, stand for a moment outside of the car, looking around, then opening the door and getting behind the wheel, with such acceptance. None of the nervousness that was present when he first started learning.  “Oh my,” I’d thought.  “He’s so grown now.”

And then that feeling I get sometimes, swept over me.  It’s that threshold feeling I get whenever one of my children are on the cusp of the next stage in life.  A happy/sad longing.  A looking back and forward all at the same time.  It doesn’t matter what the stage is, their first tooth, the start of kindergarten, that tender age of 10-12, the graduating from high school, the going off to University, or the first apartment of ones own...These milestones are reached and then passed and then, if I am lucky, there are new ones coming up in the future somewhere, marriage, children, grandchildren. 

Molly has stopped pacing in front of the door complaining and has flopped on the stairs to wait until their return.  She won’t last it out though.  Something exciting will happen, something thrilling, like I’ll walk out of my writing room to get a fresh cup of tea, and then up Molly’s ears will go, and she will spring up with a smile, her tongue tumbling out from behind her teeth and she’ll follow me panting happily, prancing her furry paws.

Well, I’d better get to my writing now.  I’m so close to the end of this re-write that I can taste it.  It’s weird how that happens.  I’m driving, pushing to do it, work hard, get it done, and then all of a sudden, when I get close, it’s like I get almost scared.  Feel reticent about going in and finishing, because maybe I’ve just been fooling myself into thinking it’s good and funny and heartwarming.  Maybe it’s none of these things.  Maybe it’s really lame and badly written and won’t speak to anyone.  (Big breath) Oh well.  I’d better get to it.  Only a few more days.  It’s hard when you have to start thinking about sending something that you’ve worked so hard on out to strangers who might think it sucks.

Posted by Meg Tilly on Sunday, January 06, 2008 in Chewing the Fat

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