THERE

It’s March 1, snow depth looking to be four inches on our backyard bench. As if to signal that spring is coming, the sun has appeared out the kitchen window, and a grin begins to thaw my frozen winter face.

Why do I smile more when the sun is out? Easy: it’s very nearly Pavlovian. My brain goes to languid, clueless lay-outs on the asphalt roof over our back-home screened-in porch, turning ever so slowly on the chaise, a human on the spit, my skin hastening into a first-degree burn with iodine and baby oil. Now THERE was a time of life: summer, no jobs except to make my bed, babysit my brothers, and make-out with boys.

But when the sun is gone, why does a veil of thin blue sadness drop over me? I think it’s a problem in object permanence. Today, gazing at the morning sun, which by all accounts will be fleeting, I remembered the toy under the cup test we gave infants in the development lab, during graduate school, to check their Piaget stage.

Here’s the test: At a certain cognitive point, babies will pursue a toy whisked under a cup, because they know, with great, gleeful certainty, even when covered up, IT’S STILL THERE. Before that magical turning point, they just look puzzled when it disappears, some more mildly distressed than others. No doubt, I was in that latter group.

At age 62, something has messed with my object permanence, and it’s not just about the sun. I seem to be in need for constantly being in touch with my adult kids on the Internet. Even to see them listed on my Contacts, there entire grown beings reduced to thin blue letters, makes me happy.

I’m not alone, according my friends in the empty nest. We have trouble trusting that the kids are THERE, even when they’re out of sight. Obsessively, we have to lift the cup, multiple times each day, for reassurance. How many of us walk around the house, still, and ask, where did time (the kids) go? Is this an early warning sign we're losing cognitive ground, and returning to pre-object permanence infancy?

Hey, I think, the sun's rays (like the kids) are still THERE, not gone. Maybe I should whip on my sunglasses when the sun (son) disappears behind the clouds (cup), and try to nudge my neurochemistries to deliver the instant happy I so desperately need on March 1.