His new Kentucky home
The drive was long and tiring, but worth it to because I got to see what I’d been imagining all these months.
Some days off from work took me to Kentucky last weekend to visit my son. He’d moved there from Los Angeles in May, to begin a new job at a TV and film production studio. For the months since, he’d been telling me about the studio, about the home he rented, about the rolling green hills around the town. About the lake where he and his fiancée would go to fish on weekends.
He’d send a quick snapshot or two, and a tour of the house on FaceTime when he arrived, but that’s not the same as being there.
The three days were a sensory feast. He picked me up in the truck he bought when he arrived in town. During the ride from the hotel he explained how the town is built like a circle, with roads stretching out in ripples from the center.
At the studio, he introduced me to his boss and then took us on a tour. If there’s ever been a young man more proud of where he works and what he does, I can’t imagine what that could be about. Moving in and out of sets and makeup rooms and conference rooms, he talked about lighting and audio and cameras. His office is a warehouse filled with cables and cameras and tripods.
“I know where everything is,” he said.
The tour of their house revealed a sofa he bought with his first paycheck, as well as a TV screen as big as his truck. I met my grandspiders, the tarantulas who were chasing some crickets for lunch. My grandfrogs were chilling in their terrarium. He put their cats on harnesses so that we could sit on the front porch; I was drinking the coffee my future daughter-in-law made me in their cute kitchen – a pumpkin spice latte.
At lunch as I tried to pay for the pizza, he pushed my hand aside and took out his debit card and swiped it.
“I got this, Mama,” he said.
There is something so warmly reassuring about seeing one’s child moving about the life he’s building. For months, I’ve conjured the studio, the house, the town, all of it; my son did a good job of describing it, because the physical things I saw pretty much matched what I’d imagined. What I hadn’t imagined – what mere descriptions could not capture – was the delight of seeing him in those places, the way he moved about this new world he’d figured out and in which he is thriving.
One afternoon, he drove us away from town to the green places where he spends his free time. We rode past beautiful old houses and farms with white fences that stretched for miles. Some horses grazed in fields and others poked their heads out of stalls.
“Cows!” I exclaimed as we came upon a pasture. I apologized for being such a nerd.
“It’s OK,” he said. “It’s almost a rule that you have to yell when you pass cows.”
What a nice kid he is. I’ve said that – as have others – all his life. Now this nice kid is moving around in a new place, touching its corners, stretching his skills.
“This is the first time you’ve visited a house where I’ve lived as a grownup,” he said as I said goodbye. “What do you think?”I told him that I’m impressed and proud.
And as I drove home I had an actual memory of his life, a new picture of where he fits into all of it.