The student traffic guards are wearing costumes.
Velvet crowns with plastic jewels, brightly colored jackets stitched with added ruffles,
tarnished medals pinned to breast pockets and stiff pink tutus peek out underneath plastic raincoats. A joker’s hat gets caught on an umbrella sprocket.

They direct the cars.
Seated in each,
an expectant college freshman.
Freshman who are eager to get out, get away, begin their journey.
The parents look out behind the glass, hazy-eyed, somber and unsure.
Move-in day has arrived.
It is here with all its wretched glory.
And it’s raining.

Cars are parked, and parents begin scurrying like ants at a picnic.
Arms are loaded with treasures.
Hands are pulling dollies stacked with boxes of sweatshirts & underwear, bottled water and laundry soap.
Freshmen wrap up precious TVs and DVDs, iPo, and iPhones in jackets and towels, and then join the fray.
Bags get wet and break open like blooms.

Everyone has extra long twin sheets

I’m doing well so far.
Jolly enough.
I help unpack. Greet the roommate. Hand out extra cash.

I linger in the desk chair and move it up against the wall.
Sitting quietly, I watch the activity, wishing to be hidden from view.
I don’t want to leave.

Mothers who have gone before me have described a change they see.
“Something is different,” they say. “You notice it when they’re home for holidays, home for summer break.”

I’d look at them blankly, not understanding the particulars of their vagueness.
They seemed to not fully understand it themselves.

But that day,
when my son moved in,
it was raining.
And I stood with him under the eaves waiting for his dad to pull the car around.
Waiting with my hazy eyes.
He put his arm around me and hugged me tight.
When he softly murmured, in a tone that was confident and sure, “I love you Mom. Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”
I knew the change had just begun.

By Rachelle Averbach

Labels: Rachelle Averbach

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