To my surprise, Bill Cunningham followed me. Assuming that he wanted to photograph the Italian Count and Countess, I left them and headed up the ramp of the rotunda. I chatted with him and his wife Giovanna, and suddenly Bill Cunningham was swarming around us like a bee, snapping away. I didn’t know a lot of fancy people, but he had been kind to those of us working on MASS MoCA in the early days, and he greeted me warmly. I walked into the rotunda and saw someone I knew: Count Giuseppe Panza. I had no idea how to clean it, so vowed not to sit down. (It was the perfect dress a decade later when I was nine months pregnant.) I could hide in the trademark pleated swath fabric, which rolled up like a diploma when it sat on my shelf. I wore a rust-colored Issey Miyake dress as big as a pumpkin, as flat as a pancake. It was the first time I put on lipstick in six weeks. On the train, I spilled my Coke and dissolved into tears (a kind train conductor saw what happened, and replaced the Coke, but that’s another story). I ran out of gas driving to the Albany train station. I struggled to get there from the Berkshires. Guggenheim Museum that December, and it was my first outing. I was invited to the opening of Jenny Holzer’s landmark show at the Solomon R. My mother turned to her and said, “if your daughter can’t figure out how to buy a pillow at college, that’s the least of your problems.” Still, I’m packing the Purell. I’m reminded of the woman standing next to my parents all those years ago at Logan, fretting that the school might not provide pillows, and she hadn’t packed one. Will I say a peppy goodbye? Will I embarrass him and myself by sobbing into his shoulder (seven inches above mine)? I recently read a blog post called “All the Wrong Things To Say at College Drop Off” (from F lown and Grown) that captured my fears – I could see myself using those last precious minutes to “sputter advice at him like someone who has five minutes to blow up 50 balloons.” Don’t forget to Purell! Change your toothbrush when it’s splayed! Change your sheets every week! I laughed through my tears as I read the post, and it has stuck with me this summer. I think of my mother, who cheerfully put me on a plane at Logan Airport, and now is gone, and can’t be asked what it was really like. So many memories are flooding my brain – like his first day of kindergarten, when I enthusiastically put him on the bus, dashed to my car, raced to school, and hid in the bushes, crying, as I watched him get off the bus and safely into the building. My eldest child is about to go off to college this week, and I’m inching towards the date like I’m about to walk off a cliff – alternately excited for him, joking that I’ll appreciate a neater house, and secretly crying into the dishtowels.
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