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| Sun in an Empty Room |
Dear Cole's Teacher:
Now some people were brought up in architect-designed, minimalist modern houses, with floor-to-ceiling glass windows and spare Japanese-style decor, and were taught that “less is more” and that they must therefore get rid of all clutter immediately before it spoils the ambiance (me) while other people just cannot bear to part with anything that comes their way because, well, you never know when it might come in handy, so they have piles of old National Geographic magazines stacked on their coffee tables, a cabinet with two sets of inherited bone china and mismatched glassware in their dining rooms, grocery bags full of used gift bags, ribbons, and wrapping paper in their closets, and Tupperware bins overflowing with corks and popsicle sticks and pipe cleaners and empty yogurt containers and small plastic animals in their kitchens (you, I suspect), and I must concede that there are advantages to both of these—let’s call them—modes of acquisition, for example, at Family Art Night last Friday, my son, Cole, told Jennifer L that he needed a black pig for the space ship he was building and after rummaging around in a bag of junk she had brought along to the art event just in case, she actually produced—I swear to God—a small, gray plastic boar—and Cole was delighted, and so was Jen, who got off a snide remark at my expense—don’t you save everything for your children’s future art projects?—while on the other hand, people entering my house for the first time often remark on its lovely calm and tranquil atmosphere, and now I can come to the point, which is this: Cole handed me the Homework Sponsor Agreement form several days ago, but I misunderstood the explanation he gave me about it (I got it confused with the parent check list that I was not supposed to return) and after glancing briefly at it, I recycled it—well, it was clutter, wasn’t it?—so it is my fault, not Cole's, that he cannot turn this part of his homework in today, and, furthermore, it is my parents’ fault that I threw that paper out in the first place because, for good or bad, they are the ones who raised me in that beautiful, austere and sometimes empty house.
Sincerely,
Cole’s Mom
by Nina Zolotow
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