"MOM" LOVE

Everyday I write-talk with my son. I e-mail him. He e-mails me.

He was a strong little one. He spoke his first word at six months -- not "Mama" or "Dada." As I pulled the cord on a fixture he said "light."

I like that.

He had a wry sense of humor. At age two, recovering from tonsil surgery, he said "Am I going to have to eat jello for the rest of my life?"

His tone is my tone.

We had fun working together on many school projects. My help created a wall for my artist son -- he doesn't jump into writing projects with the passion and energy of rebellion. The instinct to feel "I'll do it!  I can do it," has been quashed by an overly helpful Mom.

We chat about domestic problems, shopping, renovations (what color to paint things), his guitars, my ballet slippers, music that I use and music that he's fallen in love with. Lately we joke/rant a bit about growing older -- me showing how I handle it courageously, him having to handle it because he's an actor.

There are endless conversations about what his famous actor-singer Dad is doing and how success works for Dad but doesn't work for him. We share, sometimes uncomfortably -- facts of life -- realities.

Love? Since age 15 there have been lovely looking, talented, exceptionally interesting girls, in my son's life, and one wife -- all of them continue to be my daughters. The wife whom he divorced is a best friend -- I've helped her with her career. I wonder but don't wonder much about why hasn't he found the right woman. I don't want a psychoanalytic relationship with my son. I'm just there for him.

So as he progresses -- changes, looks ahead or looks back -- his mom can nod, recall, reflect on his life with him without interrupting, distracting, overly influencing where he's heading.

I like that. I am still the woman in this photo.

Yes, I'm a reference book -- a book of knowledge about his life -- what he is, and did, and does, and reached and still reaches for. I can't tell him what to do, but I remind him of what's important to him, to us.