jamming ovenbird Two nights ago my son had a friend over to work on a project for French class. They were supposed to write French lyrics to an already existing English song of their choice but they thought they would take things a step further by recording a cover of the song where they played all the instruments and sang. They chose American Idiot by Green Day. I was so delighted I could barely contain myself. My son’s friend showed up dressed like he’d stepped straight out of the 90s with a guitar strapped to his back and an amp clutched in his hand. It was a strange and unsettling feeling to be standing in the kitchen with a six foot tall fourteen-year-old boy who looked like someone I’d sat next to in drama class almost 30 years ago. The fourteen-year-old I once was felt so close to the surface it was like no time had passed at all. I experienced a bizarre sense of time becoming liquid. The past and the present were no longer discernable. I was both fourteen and forty-two all at the same time and it was completely disorienting. The kids ate pizza then disappeared to practice. I could hear my son banging away on the electric drum kit that he’d been wanting to sell just a few weeks ago. His friend already knew most of the song and turned out to be a pretty good guitarist. My son was also going to play the bass part. I tried to stay out of the way because I didn’t want to be someone’s weird mother hovering over everything with a plate of chocolate chip cookies, but what I really wanted was to press my ear to the door so I could hear everything. I wanted to press the moment into permanence—two children who were no longer children jamming together and laughing and using a huge array of bad words and having such blatant FUN that I wanted to be a part of it. But it wasn’t for me to join in. It wasn’t for me to join in during high school and it wasn’t for me to join in now. It was my job, as it has always been, to stand on the fringes and stew in a mix of nostalgia and despair and, yes, some joy too, because I was truly so happy that my kid was having screen free fun making music with a friend. The friend even has a band, which he invited my son to join as a bassist. I thought about how I might have died from glee if someone had invited me to join their band in high school. Everything swirled together in a confusing, messy soup: my past, my present, my son growing up, everything I once wished for, everything I wish for still. It was like watching a slide show of my life slowly dissolve to be replaced by my son’s life—his burgeoning hopes and fears and dreams. I wish I could go back and do it all again. I wish it had never happened at all. I wish I could live forever. I wish I had never been born. 260515 what's it to you? who go blather from