First day, second grade

We were sitting outside in the heat, watching the sky get dark, eating dinner, talking. It was the night before school started. 

I asked E to tell me three things he loved about pre-K. He listed them:

* "I loved being one of the last kids picked up! It was so fun! I didn't want you to ever come early."

* "My great teacher."

* "Snacks."

I asked him what he loved about kindergarten. He was pensive about this year. 

* "I loved helping R. out with his work once I finished mine. It made me feel good to help him and it was fun."

* "My teacher was nice."

* "Writing stories was pretty awesome."

I reminded him he learned to read chapter books that year. He nodded, indicating that could be added to the list.

Then first grade. Here's what E noted:

* "I just really, really loved studying Mars and the Macaroni penguin for research projects."

* "My teacher was so great. It's going to be hard for my teachers this year because she was so great! Plus, she never had to yell."

* "Playing with my friends. Oh, and chapter books. Plus, art class and drama."

Finally, I asked what he was most looking forward to about being a second grader. He said he wants to see his friends and maybe do more research projects. He is happy to get back to recess and gym class.

"But you know," he added, "it's so crazy in school. It's like the days are sooooo long. In the beginning of the year, you're like, 'When is this day going to be over?!' It's like second after second and it goes soooooo slow. And then the next thing you know, it is the end of the year!"

I smiled.

"Yes, I do know," I told him.

I took a moment, looked at his gummy grin and more angular features, longer hair, leggy body. 

"It's like one night you are up for hours and hours with a baby and wondering, 'When will this night end?!' and the clock ticks sooooo slowly," I paused so I wouldn't tear up. "And then, the next thing you know, that baby is going into second grade."

He smiled benevolently at me. He won't get it. He can't. Not until time flashes before him in the face of a loved one or baby or some other vision of complete and crazy and unbelievable love. Then he will know. 

But for now, he just has to worry about who is It at recess, which chapter book to choose next and how much money the tooth fairy will tuck under his pillow next time.

It's second grade, another agonizing slow and completely too-quick adventure for my boy.

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Cable car, good hair, breeze

Before this trip, I'd never ridden a cable car. I've been to San Francisco too many times to count, but have hurriedly tucked into taxis, shared a ride or hiked up and down hills. I've seen the cable cars, heard the familiar ding of the bells as they slow to let passengers on and off. I've always wanted to ride in one, but I felt silly asking the Not Boyfriend to let me tourist-out and hang off the poles when we could be sitting in some tiny restaurant or hiking somewhere together. Once, I asked him to take me and he laughed like I was joking. 

"I'm not joking!" I insisted. But I was smiling around my seriousness and we never did take that ride. 

Feeling silly suddenly felt silly last week when I promised Lil E we'd take a ride or two on a cable car, an adventure for him and maybe really more something for me. 

"Really? You're serious?" the Not Boyfriend asked when I told him we were going to take a cable car on our trip this time. He wasn't surprised I wanted to take E. He was surprised I wanted to go so much. And that I hadn't spoken up already about it. And even more surprised that I hadn't ever been on one.

Then, because he is the compassionate planner he is, he made the plans, paid for the tickets and directed our route on our first cable car adventure. I just loved it all -- seeing the city from atop the hills, steadily gaining speeding downhill, the bell that first lured me in. I loved the brash conductor who nudged us into a prime seat so Lil E could get the full cable-car experience.

I loved the cast of tourist characters talking loudly, excitedly as we passed Chinatown and the most crooked street in the country and slid into the downtown terminal. Most of all I loved the rare San Francisco summer sunshine on our legs and the breeze in our hair -- especially the breeze in E's hair.

He's grown out his hair into full surfer style -- slowly, steadily, individuatingly -- since spring. It's this sign of him becoming more him, and I see it as he carefully combs his bags over with his fingers in the mirror. His world is expanding as his sense of self does, and I just love leading him along to all these different cities. I want him to be thrilled to see the planet. I want him to be curious and humbled and happy to find new places. I want him to hike mountains, bodysurf waves, walk museums. And ride cable cars.

Without feeling silly or being afraid to ask. 

Watching him, eyes open and hair blowing back, I felt full of the city, cozied up with my loves, and my heart clanging like a bell inside the noise of the city.

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A farewell to San Francisco

We are mid-air on an excursion that began at 4 this morning. I got up, put on the clothes folded neatly beside my bed, brushed and flossed, straighened my bangs, reheated the last cup of yesterday's coffee. I put on several layers of concealer, plenty of mascara, a good swipe of lipgloss, and then I tucked my cosmetic bag into my suitcase. It was 4:35 a.m. by then and time to wake up Lil E.

He was cold, he said, coccooned in his blanket in the pitch dark room cluttered with chapter books and Legos and quarter=treasures and a 6-foot cardboard Chewbacca overseeing them all.

But five minutes later he was dressed and had his backpack on and was sitting patiently on the couch. His bedhead ws outrageous, and he was smiling.

This trip is our farewell to San Francisco. It's Lil E's first time there and could be my last for a long time. But what we are saying goodbye to is the time that has been, to the nearly three years that I have known and loved a man who has lived 2,100 miles away. In a month, the Not Boyfriend will be living in our city.

I am arriving to be at the Not Boyfriend's send-off barbecue in Crissy Field, to feel the protective arms of the Golden Gate Bridge stretch over me as we drive it one more time, to eat the most amazing fried Brussels sprouts at B Star again, to breathe in fresh air from open windows to curb the nausea while the car speeds up and down hilly streets. I will share a last round of complaints about the winter weather in August and skirt the shady side of the street in search of small stretches of sun where I can find them. I will see my friends -- the ones who I have seen on nearly every visit I've made to SF, those who I've somehow missed, and those who I have not seen enough even though I have made myself at home only blocks from their apartments when I've chosen to stay under covers and undercover with my love.

For Lil E, this last time will mean many firsts. Visiting Alcatraz, bouncing through House of Air, a streetcar ride, seeing the bridges in person, finally meeting the children of some of my favorite blogging friends.

And he will see where the Not Boyfriend has made his home all this time. This might be the most important reason for this trip -- so that Lil E can grasp how far the Not Boyfriend and I have come, and how far he will go next month for us. I want him  to feel a part of it, to get what the mileage means.

Of course, this won't be the last time the three of us are in San Francisco. Business will always be bringing me back to the area. And the Not Boyfriend's friends and their babies will be here. I like to think that the Not Boyfriend and I will come back often enough so he still feels at home in the fog and at the bars and running his favorite paths by the bay.

I like to envision the two of us walking hand in hand there, pointing out the hotel lobby where we first kissed, the restaurants where we loved to cozy up to the bar and share entrees and bottles of wine, the Ferry Building farmers market where we sat on the sidewalk and ate scrambled eggs anddrank persnickety Blue Bottle coffee (he, a soy capp and me, a skim latte).

I hope one day when we are old and moving slower, we will take our time over these landmarks where we dared to let a crazy, far-off kind of love make its home in each of our frenetic lives. 

For now, we will try this city out, the three of us together, an inaugural experience, a send-off that will propel us back to Chicago and on to a new adventure. 

The goodbye to this city will really only be a "see you later". The farewell to the life and times is something much bigger that's only a few weeks and a final few-thousand miles away.

Need the backstory on our love story?

* The Not Boyfriend meets Lil E's dad

* We three: our first trip together

* How Skype saved our long-distance relationship

* The first (not)boyfriend to meet my boy

* How the Not Boyfriend and I met, 20 years later

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