graduation day

tonight nicholas graduated from preschool. next fall he is an official kindergartner. papers signed and records checked. he's a big boy now. the graduation ceremony was adorable. the children dressed in caps and gowns and got diplomas. afterwards there was cake, punch and goody bags for the kids to take home.

it couldn't be a more beautiful night. there is a strong breeze and the temperature is very cool, chilly in fact, which is rather unusual for this time of year. usually for early summer the days and nights are a series of very hot dry heat. normally the air is still and the only sounds one hears in the varied neighborhoods, other than the electric whirr of crickets, are air conditioners.

there we were, the parents, sitting in chairs so tiny that it made the seats in coach on airlines seem luxurious. the graduating class was lined up and ready to take the stage, make-shift as an outdoor stage can be. then, blam! nicholas was clutching the side of his neck. at first we thought it was an irritation caused by the tassel. nope. some bug either bit him or stung him. either way it hurt nicholas like hell. there were tears. and there were recriminations against a bug behaving in such a manner.

cake soothed the hurt, a bit. then it was off to vic's ice cream, an old neighborhood creamery in business for over 60 years. the celebration was in full throttle. vic's is an old school ice cream shop. dinner tonight was had by the scoop. the sugar rush hit everyone hard.

i needed real food. something to chew on. when we got home and nicholas was checking out his loot via the goody bag i went to trader joe's and loaded up on veggies, bananas [a staple in casa del bronson/lopez] and other goodies. the air was cool and soft. northern california has this light, beautiful, hazy light, that renoir and other impressionists would have killed for. this light is the feeling of home. that if we lived anywhere else on earth and we came back to northern california in either fall or summer the light would bring everything back that makes us us. wherever one is raised is the template that the environment is measured and for anna and me it is this light by which we score our lives.

poems should be written about this light. but then it must've been the high from the graduation ceremony and the cake and ice cream, the cool, soft air and that dazzling light that the woman ringing up my purchases at trader joe's made me laugh so hard. the soundtrack at th stores was from the 1980s. acts like abc, devo, chaka khan, had everyone in the aisles singing along. i told the young woman at the check-out that i liked the music. it makes me feel like i'm in high school again. me too, she said. she had this very blunt way of talking that was fast and funny. i liked her immediately. she asked if i watched today's world cup match. i told here i only listened to the bbc on the radio and understood that the contest was quite the disappointment. indeed it was, she corroborated. then she told me her girlfriend played in the world cup for the irish team. told me her name and said, i didn't know about her until i googled her name. you do that too. i was cracking up because the way she talked about her partner and how watching the world cup in her house is an intense affair. and the fact that this woman, the checker's girlfriend, was quite a big star in the world of sport and that she didn't know until after a couple of years together. all this, the sugar high, nicholas passage from preschool to kindergarten, the cool, soft air and this light caught me hard as i was listening to this young woman tell me about her partner's playing for ireland. i left the store again in love, again with life.