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I'd stayed up late being silly the night before (some people dress up for Halloween and look gorgeous; I dress up and I am still, unfortunately, me, although, quite fortunately, I have my Halloween-glam friends who stand by and beguile, who also (miraculously) dance with me, even that friend who spends part of the night telling me how gorgeous all the other women are, detail by detail, he explains, they are so gorgeous, they have, he says, an aura, and that's right, these friends, they have an aura), and then I never did fall asleep. So that by the time we started driving through the endless rain to see that son I sorely miss, I was in a strange gray place, one easily pierced by the sight of cliff rock and red ivy on the dark bark of trees.

Some of the valleys were fog. Some of the valleys caught lost bits of sun, then shucked them off, before they warmed me.

When it wasn't outright pouring, we walked the campus with our son. "Hope he's able to show you a few surprises/discoveries," my friend Jay had written, and our son did more than that. He stole, with us, inside academic buildings and showed us where he sat in class. He took us upstairs to the quiet retreat where he gets his reading done. He walked us behind the campus, then out of it, and told us landmark stories. He said over and over how much he loved his school, then said, as many times, how glad he was that we had come.

What is it, I thought, what is it about him?

His happiness. His calm. His aura.

We gave the largest room in this tiny house to our son, but it was never big enough. He was a keeper of all things, always. Favorite hats and books and every paper from every grade that reminded him of something happy. He'd stack his pennies high on top of books, and beneath the books he'd keep the magazines from years ago, and inside the magazines were notes he'd taken while watching world cup soccer.

I am a devoted minimalist, seeker of clean and open space, and I gave birth to a guy like this. In this way, he is his father's son.

But today, we attacked this room together, my son and I, and suddenly it was easy to throw things away, to move them to other places. To decide that memories don't need artifacts to contain them, or not all the time, at least. Sometimes memories just are, and the old tee-shirt can go, and so can the box of tired magazines, and all the while the room grows around you, and the sun comes in, unobstructed.

We are packed now, ready to go. Tomorrow he begins his second year at college, and I begin my second fall without him. He is a man of many friends and talents, and he has found the perfect college home. I will see him go in that full knowledge and also with the knowledge that he is that rare breed of guy who wants to know what it is that I've been writing or, even, thinking, who notices how it is when I finally tame my hair, who stops, apropos of nothing, to say, Mom, I really love you, or Mom, thank you.

Thank you. Two words.

Autumn was always my favorite season, but now, to me, it means something else.

I'm hitting the road again tomorrow and don't know how much posting I'll do over this graduation weekend. Mx and I fly up to San Jose tomorrow, Joe picks us up and we hit San Francisco Fri., Candy graduates from university on Saturday then we celebrate in Napa all Memorial Day weekend. I'm SO excited. My first child to graduate from university AND the first grandchild to graduate from university on both sides of the family! Wooohooo! Isabel Allende is being awarded with an honorary degree at the graduation ceremony. If you are interested you can view the ceremony live at the San Francisco State University Commencement 2008 website.

So much to celebrate, I thought I'd do a Friday Five one day early as I'll be scrambling tomorrow....

1. HAPPY ANNIVERSARY MOM & DAD!!!!!!!!! My folks have been married 54 years today!!! 54! How wonderful. Here's what was happenin' 54 years ago...the days of The Fellowship of The Ring, Brown vs. the Board of Education and Sabrina.

2. My mom and dad met in the church choir.

3. Candy had her last college final yesterday!

4. Mx and I had the best "Ask me anything" dinner last night and it was heaven. Our last "Ask me anything" dinner was many moons ago. We ate healthier. Passed on our traditional potato skins at TGIF and opted for Brazilian food this time around. YUM!

5. OK, my camera is officially dead. So... you won't have three fuzzy black things to look at in the photos of Candy's graduation/etc. But, I've been sans pics for a while and I'm having withdrawl:)

For mom and dad:

Mx is home! WOW! Nothing, I mean absolutely nothing, feels as good as hugging your youngest after her flight home from NY after her first year in college [with MONO]. Nothing....I'm speechless. Seems like just yesterday we moved her to NYC. Dinner at home and lots o' gabbing....lots and lots o' gabbing.

Of all the epic moments in life, college graduation has got to rank in anyone’s top ten. Candy is interviewing and making decisions about where she’ll work. The choices now will either be in China or Thailand. It’s an exciting time. Like this morning I found out that she’s interviewing with a school in a city called Xi’an, the Eternal City. Seems like a perfect fit for an archeologist, the Qin Terra-cotta Warriors and Horses still being unearthed. Her last paper is being turned in today. There is nothing more magical than beginnings. She is surely on her way to an exciting one.

When I was busy raising a family, I turned to them one day and told them that if they woke up and I wasn’t here I’d be on a road trip to Mount Rushmore. I never went. It became a sort of joke for us when I was stressed about something. Mom’s on her way to Mount Rushmore. Well, Candy asked if we might want to take a trip there together this summer and make the trip a reality. We are planning it now. I have a few books we’ve been looking through. Excellent road trip planning books. One is James Dean Died Here: Locations of America's Pop Culture Landmarks, the other is MTV Roadtrips U.S.A [awesome because it includes playlists for your Road Trip]. Only when we search through those books, there really isn’t one that includes Mount Rushmore. Hmmm. Guess it’s not a particularly musical place, not a real MTV venue. And not even kooky enough to be included in the James Dean book. Which leads me to today’s Walk Through History…

Today, in 1804, Lewis and Clark set out from St. Louis on the Lewis and Clark Expedition. I looked at their map. Their route will get us from Mount Rushmore onto the Mississipi. So I think our road trip route will be a hybrid of research for my next novel which will lead me to a place I’ve always wanted to see then take us on the historic route of Lewis and Clark.

Some other pretty cool things happened today in history:

Skylab, the first US space station was launched into orbit in 1973. I so wanted to be an astronaut.

And Frank Sinatra died today, in 1998.

Isn't history so much cooler when you have a little of your own behind you? I don't know. Wasn't a real history buff. But I find I like it more and more as I get older.

This is for my little girl Mx who just rowed by the boat house a few days ago and is finishing her first year of college in the Big Apple, and a big Frank Sinatra fan. And, it begins with the cutest squirrels--shake that busy tail!]

Mother’s day came early for me this year. Candy came down to Big Sur last Monday night. Tuesday, the first full day without ol’ molar number 19, we headed to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I’ve been dying to go ever since we started working in Big Sur, oh, around five months now. Here are my three favorite videos from the day:



Playful Otters



Jellies



More Jellies

What a wonderful day of inspiration. Got some great story ideas and had a lot of fun too.

Candy will be graduating from college in just a couple weeks and I find myself alternating from feelings of total euphoria to ones where I wonder where the all the time went.

Our trip to the aquarium got me to thinking about Mother’s Day. I have my four favorite Mother’s Day mementos in front of me as I type. One, is a clear plastic frame holding a picture of Candy sitting on a swing smiling in her green Girl Scout sweatshirt, monogrammed with her first name and her troop number. The plastic frame is decorated with lots of colorful hearts and gold stars and says “I [heart] you!!!!!! [Those exclamation marks have smiles under them]. There’s more decorations and at the bottom in yellow letters “Happy Mother’s Day.” Another is an old Mother’s Day card from Mx which I saved. I wish could find a date on it, but I can’t. On the front she says, “For The Best Mom In The World Happy Mother’s Day” and inside she says, “You’re a book waiting to be opened and heard. You’re heard by me, always and forever.” The card is illustrated as if you are opening a book. On the last page there is a beautiful heart illustration with the words “Love you always” written three times inside. I didn’t start writing until the girls were in high school and college. This card is so interesting to me. Don’t all writer’s want people to open, discover their stories and, more than anything, to be heard? Over the years both of these gifts have meant so much to me, I find those that as the years pass they mean even more.

I have a few hand print mother’s day presents: Mx’s metallic blue five-year-old handprint on a ceramic circle with a pink satin tie at the top, for hanging, Mx’s three-year-old pink handprint surrounded by green, yellow, orange and light blue finger print designs on fabric stretched over a wooden frame.

I like having these Mother's Day presents around me this weekend as I work. Keeping them close. I wonder if it wouldn’t be a good idea for mom’s to pull out all the old mother’s day gifts they can find when the kids become teenagers. Because it’s only natural that teenagers get busy with their own lives and time spent with their mothers are reduced to what I like to call touch-n-goes–holidays, summers, if you are lucky. Keeping these mementos close this weekend sweetens this moment and I like that.

And, of course I got tons of books at the aquarium. What did I get? A book about Jellies, how Great White Sharks are misunderstood, A Journey into Steinbeck's California, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea [the original text with added fun facts and illustrations], a book about great day hikes in Big Sur.

I mean seriously where else would you expect to find a fantasy-writing mom on Mother's Day? Visiting aquariums and strolling Cannery Row, right? And taking stock of her goal of becoming a YA author. Today met with some good news on that front. Hope it's a trend.