Nat walks into the livingroom this morning, announcing himself in his own language, dressed in his signature yellow, shining like the sun.\u00a0 I am flooded by de-light.\u00a0 “Natty!”\u00a0 I say.\u00a0 “You’re so cute!”\u00a0 Nat’s eyebrows go way up, as if he is concentrating really hard on the meaning of cute.<\/p>\n
Ned and I agree that indeed, he is cute.\u00a0 But then!\u00a0 Oh shit!\u00a0 A flash, a split second of something, sharp, ugly, and true, that has wedged itself like a splinter into my full, fleshy happiness and whispers:\u00a0 –You’re treating him like a baby. <\/em><\/p>\n I can’t help it, I reply.\u00a0 He’s cute.\u00a0 He’s adorable.<\/p>\n -He’s 21<\/em>, says the splinter. I know.\u00a0 But he is an unusual 21.\u00a0 Besides, if I see him as truly 21, all 21, I feel a pang that I don’t want to feel.<\/p>\n -And that is?<\/em><\/p>\n Imagine what he might have been like by now.<\/p>\n -You have no idea.\u00a0 This is who he is.<\/em><\/p>\n Well… I look at Max and Ben…<\/p>\n I don’t dare finish the thought.<\/p>\n -You are a terrible person, <\/em>says the splinter. They are who they are, but who are you to say that Nat should have been someone else?\u00a0 It’s vanity.\u00a0 It’s chutspah.\u00a0 It’s hubris.<\/em><\/p>\n I guess, well, since we’re talking about it — I look at Ned’s and my genes.\u00a0 Or I think about what they contain.\u00a0 The dark and light of Ben’s art.\u00a0 The round warmth of Max’s.\u00a0 Their lightning epiphanies, realizations about — everything.\u00a0 The way they can do math (that’s Ned’s genes).\u00a0 The way they laugh at my jokes — or the way they hate them.\u00a0 The million different things they do and become and once were.<\/p>\n -And what does that have to do with Nat?\u00a0 Isn’t he a million different things and going to become even more? Yes!\u00a0 But the boys are so close, genetically.<\/p>\n -I know what you’re going to ask.\u00a0 Go ahead.\u00a0 It’s okay to wonder. It’s okay to think it. WHY<\/strong> did things end up so different?\u00a0 Why?<\/p>\n -There is no ‘why.’\u00a0 There is only what is. There is only who he is.\u00a0 Exactly who he is.<\/p>\n \u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022<\/p>\n I’m going out.\u00a0 I’m going to ride.<\/p>\n -In this weather?<\/em><\/p>\n You’re just a splinter!\u00a0 You can’t know what it’s like!<\/p>\n I know.\u00a0 Because I was once a tree.\u00a0 I could have been standing proud in a park, giving shade, dropping orange leaves in the fall.\u00a0 But instead, I am just a metaphor for your conscience.<\/em><\/p>\n Now I feel my smile coming back.\u00a0 The splinter floats free, as splinters do.\u00a0 I bundle up and I ride.\u00a0 The air is so cold, but I am dressed just right.\u00a0 My trunk, legs, and arms are warm.\u00a0 I only feel a few slashes of the wind here and there, and it is only cold like peppermint.\u00a0 Every now and then there is an ache, a burning and a strain, a pop of knee, a lumbar pressure.\u00a0 There is always, always, a little tiny bit of pain, but it’s nothing compared to the pleasure of just being here, exactly this way.\u00a0 Once again, I understand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nat walks into the livingroom this morning, announcing himself in his own language, dressed in his signature yellow, shining like the sun.\u00a0 I am flooded by de-light.\u00a0 “Natty!”\u00a0 I say.\u00a0 “You’re so cute!”\u00a0 Nat’s eyebrows go way up, as if he is concentrating really hard on the meaning of cute. Ned and I agree that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pSTth-tp","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1823"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1824,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1823\/revisions\/1824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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