Smooth Stone

I become attuned to the Proustian moments of life. Not only the ones I read about — how the sound of a shovel hitting rock changed a man's life; how the steam from a hissing iron takes a friend back into her mother's kitchen — but also the ones I experience firsthand.

I had one this morning. It wasn't so much a link to the past as it was an instant when time stopped and the eternal rushed in. I was driving Celia and her friend to school. We were running late (as usual) and the traffic was bumper to bumper (as usual) and the obnoxious people who take a shortcut and expect to be let in (also as usual — grumble, grumble) were making it anything but a pleasant drive.

But all of a sudden it didn't matter. The car was purring slowly toward school. I was the only one awake. The 15-minute drive had lulled both teenagers to sleep. Their heads were nodding. In 20 minutes they would be taking the PSAT. In 20 minutes I would be crammed onto the Orange Line. But right then, we were as one. A moment of enforced togetherness not unlike the entire experience of raising teenagers, trying to treasure the moments, even when the moments are tense, silent and filled with strife.

I know this experience won't banish the discord. But it can become a talisman, a smooth stone to keep in my pocket and hold when the hard times come.