Talking with a Boy in the Woods

My boy and I took a walk one day far into the forest. With every step, people-generated noise like voices and cars was confronted then swallowed by the sounds of the forest. Suddenly, you couldn't miss the ruckus from the river and the ticking sounds squirrels make with everything from their teeth to their claws to their cast off shells, and the give of the ground was a marked contrast to unyielding cement. 

Jon that day in the forest,
with the river - 
and the wind - at his back.

We stopped to watch the river, and a gnarled branch snapped from a tree, fell into the water, and was quickly swept away. There was something reverent, primeval, yet efficient about it. I wondered if the tree had cut the branch loose or the branch had deserted the tree; whether it was a tiny death or a swift rebirth, or a little bit of both.

"Wow, Jon," I said. "That branch just stopped being part of a tree after who knows how many years, and now it's part of a river. We just witnessed something kind of incredible when you think about it."

Jon considered that. And so it was that after the branch parted ways with the tree, our conversation stopped being mundane; it shifted away from dinner plans to hover around what his life could become, of college, and adulthood, and ambitions and dreams.

I thought of a book I used to read to him and his sister, Raggedy Ann in the Deep Deep Woods. I don't remember all the details anymore, but in the story, Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy traipse off into the forest. At some point they drink something pink, and I made a hit with my kids, who were very little then, when we made our own "pink drink" from lemonade and food color. They were so excited about drinking what Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy drank, that it was like hitting the mother lode of parenting. Delighting them is more complicated and expensive now.

Jon leaves soon, heading off to college out-of-state. When that happens, one of my branches will drop free and travel on a river to parts unknown. Will I have let go of Jon or will he have let go of me? Will it be a tiny death or a swift rebirth? 

Maybe a little bit of both.