It's happening again....It's only July and already the best birds have taken off for parts unknown.  If you don't believe me, set your alarm for 4:30 and open your window.  Oh wait.  It's DARK now at 4:30.  That's almost a good thing since you can now sleep for an extra hour at least, but when you DO open that window, you'll hear a mourning dove, a crow, and maybe a sparrow.  The divas have left the building.  There is still a lot of summer to go, though, and it doesn't seem quite fair, but there we are.

Meanwhile, my own nest will soon be temporarily full again.  Son Number One flies home this Saturday from a summer internship in Washington, D.C. and will be in residence for a couple of weeks before heading back to his last year in college.  Son Number Two has been home since May and has been working at my place of employment since June, so we commute together.  OK, sometimes he sleeps going in or out of town, but often we chat about whatever is on his mind, or he'll run lines with me to help me memorize my script for the play I'm in.  It's been a joy to breathe the same air for the whole summer.  I'd forgotten how much fun he is.  I'll have him until just before Labor Day.  My mother used to call this "having all her chicken's in one roost" and it was her greatest joy.  I didn't understand what the big deal was back then.  I do now.

They'll both be back to school soon and the house will be quiet again.  And that's OK.  I'm getting better at letting the birds leave the nest.  I understand that it's their turn to fly and that soon they won't be coming "home" because they'll be making nests of their own.  To my complete astonishment I'm finding that my claws are retractable after all.  Not only do I not have to hang on for dear life, I don't really want to.  I'm enjoying watching the process and I am dazed at the talent and resourcefulness they both show.  But for the moment I am thoroughly enjoying the prospect of time with my boys.  Himself and I will have time for dinners and movies again, instead of playing chauffeur.  We'll be back to washing the dishes ourselves and taking out our own trash, and we're quite capable of doing all that and more.  But just as the quiet mornings make me sad once the birds leave, the quiet house will be bittersweet.  Silence can be good, too. And, as for the birds and the boys, as a very smart friend once told me every time I wept at his departure, "How can I come back if I don't leave?" and that was and will always be cause for celebration.

For those of you who have heard the phrase but never knew what the heck it meant, an "Irish Twin" is a sibling born less than a year before or after you, so that for a few days or weeks or sometimes months a year you had a sister or a brother who was the same age as you.  Today starts my Irish Twin week.  My baby brother was born on July 28.  I had been born on August 3 the year before, so we had six days of being "twins".  Well, I would tell everyone we were twins.  He would tell people he'd never seen me before in his life!

It's a silly little tradition, but I've been missing it for almost twenty years now and today is no exception.  So Happy Birthday, Smitty, in heaven where you belong after your sad growing up and your tour in Viet Nam when you were much too young.  I miss your Wolfman Jack impersonations (which were REALLY good) and your insane laughter.  I am counting on you to keep an eye on your nephews as they get to that dangerous and tempting decade of their twenties.  And you'd better be saving me a good seat.  I blow a kiss towards the sky and know you will return it.  You're still a presence in my life and always in my heart. <3

It's a hard day.  Tomorrow I will sing at the funeral of the nephew of my first real boyfriend.  He was a handsome kid, but he never smiled.  In all the pictures that flashed by in the video at the wake this afternoon, his eyes looked sad.  I may be projecting.  Maybe he was the life of the party among his friends, I'd only met him once or twice, but he chose to find a permanent solution to a temporary problem, and my friends are devastated while the rest of us shake our heads and try to think of something comforting to say to his mother and his widow.  There is nothing to say.  There are no words for this kind of grief, for this kind of waste. 
As a mother I recoil in horror at the one nightmare I don't think I could survive.  I think of all the times my kids have driven me crazy, ruined my plans, caused me worry.  But the thought that their problems could drive them to end it all has never crossed my mind.  The size of the gap their absence would leave in the fabric of my universe is unfathomable.  I cannot for the life of me wrap my head around this one.
His struggles are over, and I know a loving God understands that he just couldn't handle any more.  I know he is at peace at last. But there is no peace for the people who loved him and worried about him.  There is no peace to be found in not worrying any more.

It's Bastille Day, and, even with my degree in French Literature ("Voulez-vous des pommes frites avec ca?") I find it a tad hard to get excited.  I am more excited about the fact that I ducked another trip to the gym...yeah, yeah, I know...and that Himself (fractured rib and all) took Son Number Two to go work himself into a sweaty mess in the middle of a thunderstorm.  Had I remembered that bottle of sherry the other day this evening would be pretty close to perfect.

As it is, I feel compelled to have something on the table when they return, even if it is only leftovers from the past two days with a salad on the side.  The piles are calling my name, but I'd really rather sit down and learn my lines from the play I'm in.  I am such a snob about being the first one in a cast to get "off book".  Sixty-one is a little late for developing ADD, but I find myself wandering from room to room, starting something and then saying, "Oh, look over there!" and off I go to some other soon-to-be-discarded task until it's time for bed.  The theory is that if I do that enough times eventually the house will be clean.  So far the theory doesn't hold a lot of water.  Maybe it will work better if I sing "La Marseillaise" as I go.........

Yesterday Himself and some friends went for a bicycle ride.  It wasn't a very long one (he has been known to go over a hundred miles just to pass a Saturday) but it turned out to be eventful.  He hit a storm drain which was four inches below the road and over he went.  When he came home (rather earlier than I'd expected) I noticed something on his nose.  I thought it might be a leaf, or maybe a scratch.  I asked him about it and he turned and said, "Maybe it has something to do with this," at which point he showed me his scraped shoulder, elbow and knee.  It's a good thing I have Mommy experience, because I sat him down, ran to the store for antiseptic pain killer spray and big bandages.  We don't get this size "boo boo" around here much anymore.  After a shower and a bit of patching up he went up for a nap and seems fine today except for sore ribs which the doctor will take a look at later this morning.  We are (as we have always been) blessed and watched over by many angels.

This, in combination with a couple of TRULY alarming Boston drivers this week and a pedestrian in Plymouth who strolled across the street at night in front of my car was a reminder to me of how much I need those angels.  Every minute is a miracle, and a life can change in the time it takes to gasp.  A very dear friend of mine lost her husband with absolutely no warning.  Another has been diagnosed with cancer.  Another whose fabulous career I have long envied has been searching for work for months and is in a panic. And then there are those friends of mine who have left me unexpectedly.   Nothing is guaranteed.  I know we all know that, and the stress of trying to appreciate each and every precious moment would drive us all crazy and make us pretty annoying to be with, I'm guessing.  Still, the mindfulness of the Buddhists is not such a bad role model. 

Life is speeding by pretty quickly at this point.  I am amazed and amused at how old I will be on my next birthday, and I have mixed feelings about how many seats I am offered on the subway these days.  On the other hand, I am perfectly happy to be on the "back half of this golf course and heading for the club house."  There's still a lot of life left here, mind you, and I'm still trying every day to improve the quality of it, whether it is July Resolutions to clean the house or to drop a few pounds or exercise more, every day is New Year's Eve.  Nevertheless, I don't envy Dr. Who (apologies to those of you who are not sci-fi fans of this wonderful BBC show from Wales).  He's over 900 years old and never dies. He just "re-generates".  At some point I'd rather take the rest.

But while I'm still here I am so grateful for my angels and for the prayers of friends (and now that I think of it, have you ever seen them in the same room at the same time?  Hmmmmm.) and for Himself who continues to make me look like a slug, but a happy one.