Musical Chairs

Covid caused an abrupt upheaval to life as they knew it.

“From his first breath to your last, you’re a mother now.” My grandmother held my newborn son in her frail arms and delivered those prophetic words with her signature smile. Now, almost three decades later, I hearken her wisdom. Wherever my three twenty-something sons roam, a small chunk of my heart travels with them. The only time I truly possessed them was when they grew inside me. Each one began distancing himself from me the instant he was born. Today, though they’re fully grown men, separate and apart, the tether still binds.

Much ink has been spilled over the effects of the Pandemic on children. My sons are no longer children, yet they’re still my children, and always will be. When they were little, they delighted in playing party games like Duck, Duck, Goose and Musical Chairs. Both games involve a desperate search for a safe place to sit, either after tagging someone or when the music stops. In mid-March, we were all tagged. Now, our individual and collective sense of health and well-being depend largely on where we were when the music stopped.

Alex, my 28-year-old composer, returned from London in February, having just experienced sweet success. After much hard work, an experimental theater in London staged a workshop of his latest musical. My husband and I have never missed any of Alex’s shows, and we weren’t about to start, despite the scary news from China. Thus we hopped a Tuesday red-eye from Newark to Heathrow and arrived in time for a Thursday performance. I remember the echoing, empty airports, washing my hands obsessively on the flight, and our taxi driver complaining about the steep drop-off in flights from Asia.

Then in March, after creating three musicals at Yale, logging countless hours of musical directing, orchestrating and vocal coaching, Alex’s gig economy existence abruptly ceased. Having established an extensive network and an impressive body of work, the London musical represented a huge step forward in Alex’s career. Now, with Broadway and Off-Broadway theaters closed indefinitely, who knows what the future holds?

For Alex, the music stopped mid-musical.

Children in their twenties may not require as much sleeplessness as infants or as much tolerance as toddlers and teenagers, but they do frequently require their parents to navigate a perilous sea. Twenty-somethings are neither fish nor fowl; no longer children, yet frequently, not exactly grownups. As their mother, I am a witness to my sons’ Sisyphean struggle, with one stubborn foot planted in childhood and the other foot straining toward adulthood. As parents, we straddle the line right along with them.

Twenty-five-year-old Matthew, my middle son, is fiercely independent. My little ballbuster has always been this way, chafing under the strictures and boundaries of authority, parental or otherwise. When our willful, indignant, relentless little Matt bristled or seethed at any injustice, my hard-nosed husband repeatedly cautioned him to “learn where the leverage lies,” whether it be with a teacher, a coach and now, in business. Matt currently spends his days and nights as an itinerant entrepreneur. Even before COVID-19, Matt flew enough miles to earn his Platinum Card on United Airlines at the ripe old age of 24.

This past summer, instead of a wild party to celebrate his birthday, Matt rang in his 25th quietly with a couple of friends. Matt, ever the rolling stone, has been house-hopping lately, serially quarantining and self-isolating along the way. Before mid-March, Matt’s social life included clubs, parties and Swiping Right.

But that was Before. We’re now all in the After.

Now, for My Ferocious Matthew, I sense Pain. Now, I fear Loneliness. Bitterness. Frustration.

I know I’m not supposed to know anything about my children’s sex lives. Moreover, there are two categories of people that one should never have to picture or hear having sex: one’s parents and one’s children. Lately, I’ve heard far too many stories of friends’ boomerang children coming home with significant others, and TMI anecdotes featuring paper-thin walls, revealing far too much sex for parental ears. Once children leave for college, they’re never meant to live with their parents again. Rather, they’re only supposed to be visitors, briefly parking their arses during a fleeting flyby, featuring, maybe, a little laundry and refueling. Twenty-somethings belong with their lovers and friends, not their parents.

Unlike some of Matt’s friends, he had no significant other when the music stopped. These days he flies solo, a Lone Ranger.

We parents, despite some helicoptering tendencies, have encouraged our children to be independent, albeit a different kind of independent than we were ourselves. During the Seventies, in that long-ago time before cellphones and nanny cams, my parents embraced a more laissez-faire parental philosophy. My mother kicked me out of the house after school, to roam the neighborhood on my banana-seat bicycle, commanding me only to return in time for dinner.

Lately, I’ve witnessed a throwback to an earlier era. The children of my town, their dance cards recently filled with structured activities like Little League and ballet classes, now roam my neighborhood with friends on their bicycles, one of the few activities available to them where they can be free. Free of their screens. Free from supervision. Free to be with their friends. Many of their parents are working, and some of their babysitters and nannies are gone. Only the little ones need constant attention now. As for me, I’m grateful that my days of hypervigilance are long gone.

I feel fortunate to be done with the intensive parenting I used to do before my sons left home. Each of my boys “soiled the nest” a bit before leaving it, cheeky, resentful of parental authority, each ready to spread his wings. When they left, we were all ready for them to go. For many parents, the Leaving for College time is bittersweet. But it’s as it should be. When our chicks leave the nest, we receive the ultimate pink slip. If we’ve done our job well, it basically ends.

Except it doesn’t.

Our children still have lessons to learn, and we still have a responsibility to teach them. We’ve all learned countless lessons since the curtain descended on our former lives in March. Many of us have experienced loneliness, disappointment and frustration, but hopefully, we’ve also gained some resilience and a renewed appreciation for our health and our families. I haven’t taught those lessons, but I have highlighted some silver linings when given the chance.

Only occasionally, though. With twenty-something sons, I have to pick my spots.

My sons are young; me, less so. When they were small, they loved digging their chubby fingers into Play-Doh. These days, they’re sometimes better clay than I am, more pliable and flexible than I am. But, not always. They’ve been taught to handle life’s whims and vicissitudes, to try their best to make good choices.

Choice. When it comes to my children and Pandemics, I never got the memo that says that I have one. Still, choice is a relative concept. It often involves the lesser of two evils.

“Ship your bike,” I instructed Daniel, my youngest, the morning before he flew home. Until recently, Daniel was a senior at Northwestern. His Spring “plan” had included part-time status, with only two classes standing between himself and his graduation in June. I vaguely remember celebrating the last tuition payment with a glass of wine. How many glasses of wine have I sipped, and gulped, since this Madness began?

‘C’mon, Mom, I’m probably coming back in a few weeks,” Daniel protested.

“Ship your bike,” I begged. “Consider it insurance. If you go back, I’ll send it back to you.”

Thank goodness he listened. He doesn’t always.

Daniel’s a Renaissance Man. During college, he’s done triathlons, sung a cappella, rowed crew and developed his passion for painting. He eagerly looked forward to spending his last few precious months of school hanging out with friends he’d grown to love.

It was not to be.

In March, Daniel abruptly fled the house he shared with 13 other guys. In June, he returned briefly to Chicago after his virtual graduation in order to fetch his belongings. And to say goodbye to whoever remained, a paltry few who chose to ride out the Pandemic at Northwestern. Some of them couldn’t go home. Whatever the reason, Daniel needed to see them, to gain some shred of closure to his college years.

Empathy comes slowly to many 22-year-olds. College seniors are typically self-absorbed, mostly consumed with and planning for their post-college transition to the Real World. A Pandemic wasn’t in the Plan.

Daniel knows he’s lucky. He’s healthy, employed and debt-free. Lucky, and grateful. Last Spring, my sister lived with us for nine weeks. During that time, she and Daniel shared many heart-to-heart talks. Sometimes, the same words that came from her mouth, instead of mine, could somehow be heard by Daniel, and for that I was grateful. For my children, as in the Charlie Brown cartoon’s “mwa-mwa-mwa,” words emanating from my mouth are Just Noise.

Silver Linings. COVID-19 has compelled my sons to finally learn to cook. During high school, they had little time to acquire any cooking skills, but the Pandemic has provided them the gift of Time. Watching my sister and me cook together, inhaling the enticing aromas emanating from the kitchen, became infectious. One by one, my sons entered the kitchen, not only ready to eat, as usual, also but ready to cook. My boys have helped produce some pretty impressive meals during our time together, including a Moroccan tagine, a chicken curry and a veggie-filled frittata. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Like most growing boys, Alex, Matt and Daniel have always had pretty impressive appetites. Not infrequently, they would descend with their friends on my pantry like a locust plague, inhaling everything not nailed down. During this Pandemic, my pantry has been my haven. I’ve found that doing inventory amongst the shelves quiets my nerves.

Considering his triathlon training and a 6-foot, 3-inch body, Daniel has the metabolic and caloric requirements of at least three people. During the Spring and Summer, Daniel cycled the length and width of the State of New Jersey, almost always alone. I swallow hard when he leaves, and I swallow hard when he returns. On Memorial Day, he called, breathless.

“Mom, I’m outta gas. I might be able to go a little more…”

“Stop right where you are,” I said. “Where are you? I’m on my way.”

Of course, I picked him up. Fifty-five miles from home.

When I saw him, I tried not to scold or lecture, but it was tough. In the old days, I would have given him a piece of my mind. Now, a nasty speech of narrowly avoided consequences brewed inside me like a witch’s cauldron. Breathe, Susan, breathe. Keep it together. I sat up straight and gazed upward through the windshield. Outwardly, I made a Herculean effort to project Calm. Mostly, though I just felt Relief. I bit my tongue and swallowed hard.

“Thanks, Mom,” he said.

Silently, I handed him two huge bottles of Poland Spring and five CLIF Bars. Silently, I started the car and headed for home.

COVID-19 has provided a potential snapshot, a freeze-frame in time, when we’ve been given an opportunity to see anew, to acquire a whole new vantage point. Each of us has his or her own unique prism through which to view the World. Like the Galaxies Far, Far Away during my sons’ childhood, the Pandemic World is a strange and altered Universe.

Gone are the days when my little boys pretended to be Superheroes. As a valiant Superman, Batman, Captain America or an occasional Thor, my pint-size Saviors would unfurl their capes and bravely battle the Forces of Evil, sometimes with swords, sometimes with light sabers and sometimes even with the occasional bathroom plunger. Today, as they tower over me, the babies who once lived inside me battle different Forces. Today, they fight things like Climate Change. Bigotry. Racism. Today, my babies go out into the World and engage the Enemy on very different kinds of battlefields.

My sons’ Battlefields will certainly change over Time. Their taste in Music, too, will undoubtedly mutate. As will the Chairs they occupy. This Pandemic provides just another version, another tragic turn at the random Game of Musical Chairs.