Summer is almost over because the boys return to school next week. I am torn between feeling a huge sense of relief that is strangely mixed with a certain sense of nostalgia. The end of Summer always does this to me though. Somehow saying goodbye to this season feels like a letting go of freedom, a trek into the unknown, a time to pull up your socks and get down to the grind once more.  I anticipate the shortening days and the darkness.

And it has been a long Summer and I am sure I recorded in my blogs how crazy I was beginning to feel from the lack of routine and the general chaos that a household without routine can suffer from. But looking back on it now I see that it was a time where we all got to know each other a little better and how basically we have come to respect the lives that live under this roof.   

But there are some things you don't know about people until a certain moment presents itself. As I was heading out to do some errands today I made my usual pronouncement, does anyone want anything from the store? Hand up. Middle son. Could I get him a writing pad. Sure, I said, I need a fresh one too so I'll pick it up for you. When I got home Middle son thanked me for the pad and disappeared. I headed off with the dogs for their daily walkies and when I got home he was sitting at the kitchen table, writing. I said, what are you writing? Oh, nothing much, he said, actually songs, well, poems, I don't know really. I could see that the table was strewn with bits of paper and my son was transcribing the material on them into his new writing pad. He said, Mom, can you put ''you you'' together. I said, why not? Well, is it grammatically correct, he asked. I said, you know, I'm not so hot on grammar, I just write. Do you think Picasso was worried about his Art grammar or Joyce gave a hoot about fitting all his words properly together? You just write what you want to.

I asked him then to show me his writing. On the front of the pad I read; Music is what feelings sound like. He said he found it in a book and liked it.  As I started to read his words, I saw that they were searching words, good words, seeking understanding, sixteen year old words full of quandaries but with a purity that startled me. I asked him if he would sing one of his  songs to me and he reluctantly got out his guitar and started to express his own written thoughts. I wasn't prepared for my reaction. I began to cry. I cried for the beautiful plaintive lyrics and for the music but most of all I was crying for the moment. The moment was clear and certain and it would never occur again. My son was gifting me and what's more, is that he didn't even know it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJLsgAd4YAM This is what my feelings sound like today.