Among Other Things....

...my Sun, who is just about my height/soon-to-be-taller, graduates elementary school today. He is eleven years old. For most of it, it's been him and me. For seven years, we've taken the hour-long commute in the mornings, giggling and telling stories, or eating breakfast, or arguing over undone chores/lost bus passes/missing homework, doing homework or sleeping. When he was very little he used to stand on the seat beside me, in the corner seats we always take, peering out the window of the elevated train, waiting to see the two big highlights of our trip. The first was the trainyard just above the Parkchester Station. In the morning the yard was mostly empty, yards of silver tracks criss-crossing each other like shiny ribbons.

And then right before we went under ground, we'd cross over the very high bridge that spans the dirty Bronx River and look down over a lot where school buses used to park. He would race to see how many buses were still parked in the yard before the train went under ground.

After a while, he got too big to care... playing his video games or reading a book instead.

Only one year I didn't take him in every day; the year his friend the Moon went to the same school and Shoefly, who is a much better morning person than I, would take them both in. I didn't miss rushing to get out of the house, but I did miss taking him to school.

Over seven years his hair went from long to drastically short to gradually long again, his face went from round to long, his voice deeper. Only his beautiful eyes remain unchanged, but now his face has grown to accommodate them.

Over seven years I went from war to peace with his father, been in love twice, played with booty calls, been heartbroken and joyous.

I've made friends, lost friends, changed friends...

But his life hasn't changed much. By the time I was his age I'd lived in three different countries, and he has pretty much lived in the same apartment his whole life. I was a lot more independent. I definitely wasn't as spoiled.

But he's a good kid, I think. Mostly polite and courteous except to me at times; talented, resourceful and enormously secure in himself.

I don't know that he realizes how much his life is about to change, but I'm confident that he'll handle it the way he handles most things; with a calm beyond his years and mostly good humored.

My little boy... now soon-to-be taller than me, long legged and husky voiced. I love him more than I could ever say... he is truly my light, my sun.