that western air

My dear boy bought a one-way ticket to Seattle the other morning.

It's been a long time coming, this leaving of his, though we've both known it for awhile. It was the doing of it, of course, that's been so hard. Or, to be more exact, the being unable to do the doing of it.

His ticket is for the train, of course, because that is the way of my dear boy. I am envious of this (it was he who showed me, over the course of two summers, the romanticism of train travel and also the great beauty of this country), and amused (why do in one day what can be done in two, or three, or ten?), and so very, very sad.

We know that it is for the best, and that he is going home, for now, to the island he loves, to the forest lands and the ocean water and the air he longs to breathe.

My beloved New York, my small-town life in the midst of millions, is not for my boy, despite his genuine love for it too.

We will be saying goodbye, at least for now, at least for here. But in the meantime, from now until I kiss him goodbye at Penn Station on June 10th, we will fill our days and evenings with the people we love, and we will come home tired and tipsy and teary and filled to the brim with love for each other; with, in our calmer moments, hope for each other, and for us together.

Of course, when one or the other or both of us gets tragically overly sentimental about our impending goodbyes, one of us will, hopefully, manage to laugh and remind us both that we will see each other at the end of July.

And despite everything in between, this coming goodbye makes me think fondly of the beginning. I don't think, back then, that either of us imagined we would be together now, let alone going our separate ways, at least for awhile.

It's funny what can happen, and I'm banking on it getting funnier yet.