So on Wednesday morning it was chaos in our house. Only for about 15 minutes, but any minutes of Not Fun is Not a Great Way to Start the Day. Charlie had woken early and got up and smiled and wanted a shirt; he was pulling it on backwards (it’s an Oakland A’s t-shirt with numbers on both sides) and I gestured wordlessly to turn it around and his eyes clouded and he made a low noise. I stepped away and then heard thump cry and the chaos ensued.

But I don’t mean the chaos of a crowd of a massive throng of humanity in a crowded space and someone yells “fire.” Chaos is from the ancient Greek word chaos, which means a “gaping [hole],” an emptiness, a vast void. Really, chaos is what I feel when Charlie has a tough moment: Things happen both quickly and slowly as someone darts for a pillow and someone stays with Charlie and there’s ice and crying. As a parent, you just want to help your child and things happen and you feel your can try your everything-est, and still something kaka—that’s ancient Greek for “bad things”—happens.

Wasn’t the end of it, either.

Charlie stayed with my parents—-as I’ve said too much, he starts school next Monday—-and I dropped off Jim at the train and headed to Jersey City where I was supposed to meet a student at 8.30am, which did not happen because, due to being distracted by the latest chaos, the string of back to back classes and appointments on my calendar, and being in the third day of, how shall I put it, losing most of my electrolytes whenever I attempted to eat anything, I missed my turn-off to Routes 1 & 9 North and the Pulaski Skyway and found myself heading towards the toll, and then signs that said “Lincoln Tunnel” and “George Washington Bridge.”

Believe me, I was in no state to find myself driving into midtown Manhattan Wednesday morning. (Quizzes tomorrow in both elementary Latin and Greek classes and we needed to get ready.)

Jim had shown me an alternate route that would take me over the Route 1 & 9 truck bridge but what exit off the Turnpike? 15B? The sign said Exits 15F-15H or some such, where was 15B…..

15F turned out to be correct, as indicated by the sign proclaiming Jersey City and the steel arches of the Skyway rising straight across from me across the reeds and steel containers and concrete roadways and cars (moving and rusting, and still) that populate the Meadowlands. Jim called me back as I was getting onto the truck bridge and I was only 15 minutes late to meet the student, and a beat-up yellow schoolbus was only partially blocking  where I park so I could get my car in.

The day spun off from there. We went over the present tense of verbs in Latin class and the I drilled the Greek alphabet in my Greek class, read Virgil with more advanced students, sorted out schedules for students panicking because the last day to drop/add classes draws nigh (it’s today), fielded phone calls and explained how to register for the GRE, had a really lovely talk with a student about things that are very important to me and (as I learned) to her, talked about how to write personal statements to a law school-bound student—-got into my car to go home early to have dinner with my parents and Charlie (who’s had a very nice day with a trip to the aquarium) while Jim worked late and learned about new plans for the student newspaper, backed my car out (the street is a one-way going down on a slope) with one student offering to keep an eye on traffic——stood behind Charlie to practice piano—-

Let chaos come; at least the idea of order returns again.

Charlie and I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Saturday. We had a fabulous time, and that includes the anxious moments, which were expected. It was a brand new experience for Charlie—-the first time he has gone to an art museum and to one that is not a designated children’s museum—and, of course, Jim was still out of town. There was some hollering and the usual looks: We just kept moving on.

(And later, as we waited on the platform for the PATH train near where the WTC once stood, I noted that Charlie’s fingers were red and that he was bending over to pick up a tiny white object: He had just lost a tooth and that must have been bothering him all day.)

We got into New York City and walked east to catch the #6 subway (another new thing) and then got off at 77th street (a dog got on). Then to the Met, where I haven’t been in years: We did a rather fast tour of the galleries of Greek, Roman, Egyptian and Near Eastern art, with me pointing out some of the myths, noting that an ancient Greek cuirass looked like it might fit Charlie, and dragging Charlie over to admire the restored interior of a rich Roman’s house. We rode the elevator a few times after Charlie found it and lingered in a gallery of Rodins (Orpheus and Eurydice……Cupid and Psyche) and walked through an exhibit of Jasper Johns. Yes, it was more of a walk-through than a leisurely gallery tour, but Charlie stopped when I called him so I could examine a painting, and he probably would have walked through a few more galleries but I thought it enough for a first visit.

Because I think we’ll be going back.
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Charlie rearranged the three folded-up fleece blankets at the foot of his bed and called for Jim: “Da-ad! Da-ad!”

“‘Hey pal, I’ll be in to talk to you,” said Jim who was promptly told by Charlie “lie down!”—whereupon, Jim and I had to agree, it might not be a bad idea to get Charlie a full-size double bed for his 11th birthday. He’s slept in a single bed ever since we transitioned Charlie out of his crib (when he was just turning 2 years old) and, needless to say, he’s inches, he’s a few feet taller than he used to be.

When Charlie was 2…….that was when we were living on Ashland Avenue in St. Paul, not far from Ruminator Books (now, sadly, closed). Sometimes Jim and I just look at each other and shrug “where did the time go?”; sometimes it seems like it was only yesterday that I carried Charlie snug in the curve of my left arm, supported by my hip.

Over the weekend, I saw some friends I had last seen eight-plus years ago. Some have kids of their own; others are my age, and not yet married or parents (yet). Everyone asked about Charlie and—how can you explain all those years, the sage of moving from place to place and Charlie learning to talk and swim and ride his bike and the whole epic of finding the right school for Charlie—in snatches of conversation over dinner in a noisy Greek restaurant with lovely food or walking down 8th Avenue towards Time Square and running for a taxi? I often resorted to something basic: “Charlie’s taller than me, his feet are bigger, and he’s got fingers as long as his palms—-just right for playing the cello. Yes, he’s in special ed; he talks some—he tries really hard.”

Just how hard was in full evidence over the past few days. Jim had to spend most of his time in New York attending to a meeting of 20-plus professors from all over the country; they are all contributors to a book on Catholic Studies that Jim is editing. I found myself playing hostess at dinners where—-instead of nudging Charlie to tell the waiter “burger and fries, please”—I was handed the wine list and asked all of guests to move their chairs in together so that two more people could squeeze in. Friday night Jim and I stayed over in a hotel: “He went to sleep ok but Saturday morning……” was my parents’ report when I came home on Saturday around noon to “check in.”

We all went back into New York and Charlie happily walked up and down 7th Avenue to see some friends.”Cousin Bobby! Hal! Cousin Bobby! Hal! Dad!”, Charlie kept saying on the ride in. Charlie said his hello’s and went off for dinner with my parents and was conked out on the couch when—it was past midnight—we got back. “He kept looking out the window, and then he fell asleep,” said my dad.

Charlie dozed off in the back seat beside me as we drove Cousin Bobby to JFK Airport and then I, then Jim, slid into sleep on the couch (it’s blue, beat-up and the slipcovers washed to faded softness, and accordingly conducive to moments of narcolepsy). We woke up just as Davidson College lost to Kansas and Jim took out the bikes.

At first, Charlie kept putting his toes down and walking his bike, and making it clear he was not happy. He was riding his still new red bike: It’s a mountain bike with a sturdy frame–no kid stuff. I ran down the street after Jim and Charlie when Charlie was tiptoe-bike-riding and Jim and I gently urged “pedal!”.

When I turned back towards home, Charlie’s unhappy voice could still be heard. With a “why not” feeling, I pulled out his old yellow bike and—not sure the old dictum of “once you learn to ride a bike, you never forget” would hold—pulled myself up. I went around the block, suddenly more aware of where there was a pothole, where a slight incline, and the coolness of early spring. I remembered when I last rode a bike everywhere, some fifteen years ago in Connecticut. I thought of the red bike I had that was stolen, and how a friend found a grass green Schwinn for sale in front of a thrift store and raced to tell me. I thought of how many mile I once biked.

Charlie grinned and skipped on the sidewalk when he saw me riding his old bike. Jim reported that they had made it to the center of the town and then Charlie just got going—”I think he’s aware of the power of the bike, and what he can do on it,” said Jim. Just as we’re trying always to understand the power inside Charlie that’s poised to come up and show us places we’ve never seen—have yet to see.