If you had to divide your favorite things between yourself and somebody else, what would you keep? Patricia Clark, a Michigan poet, has it figured out. [Introduction by Ted Kooser.]

Fifty-Fifty

You can have the grackle whistling blackly 

        from the feeder as it tosses seed,

if I can have the red-tailed hawk perched

        imperious as an eagle on the high branch.

You can have the brown shed, the field mice

        hiding under the mower, the wasp’s nest on the door,

if I can have the house of the dead oak,

        its hollowed center and feather-lined cave.

You can have the deck at midnight, the possum

        vacuuming the yard in its white prowl,

if I can have the yard of wild dreaming, pesky

        raccoons, and the roaming, occasional bear.

You can have the whole house, window to window,

        roof to soffits to hardwood floors,

if I can have the screened porch at dawn, 

        the Milky Way, any comets in our yard.

As you can imagine, the past few days—without our son—have been…different. Even though I looked forward to this day, planned for it, prepared for it, I underestimated the impact of that empty bedroom. That bedroom that still smells like him….

OK, enough of that.

For more than 19 years, Nick has been my first priority in most things, and suddenly—pfft—he’s gone. I’m not feeding, clothing or supervising him. Now if he sleeps in and misses class or lives like a slob in his dorm, I don’t have to do anything about it! It’s time to finish letting go, a process that started when he climbed, crying, out of the car to go to his first day of preschool.

Just as in any life transition, I expected a period of adjustment. Here are some things I’m finding helpful in my transition—you might also find them helpful during a transition of your own:

Like so many life changes, attitude makes a huge difference, and here I’m on solid ground. I’m mostly excited about what’s happening right now. I want my son to grow up and be on his own—that has always been my goal, and the fact that he is already quite independent is a credit to us. I’m looking forward to the extra time, emotional and physical energy I’ll be able to devote to other interests—to my husband, my writing, my horse, even my house. I’m choosing to see this as a time of exploration, adventure and rebirth. I’m eager to see what comes next.

We move our son into his college dorm this afternoon, so here are some fitting words from Theodor Geisel, otherwise known as Dr. Seuss:

It’s summertime and my procrastination levels are as high as the humidity. Here are just a few things I did while I was supposed to be writing this blog post:

Read some of the “Funniest Reviews” on Amazon.com.

Moved individual blog post files into my “Completed Blog Post” folder.

Changed the sheets on my bed. Changed the sheets on my son’s bed (he’s sick).

Added three books from the July/August issue of More magazine to my TBR list. (Kind of Cruel, Forty-One False Starts: Essays on Artists and Writers, and The Green Boat.)

Folded laundry.

Looked at pets up for adoption on Petfinder.com.

Washed the French doors that look out onto the lanai.

Now, it’s not that these things had no value—it’s just that they were, perhaps, not the best use of my time right then. However, I did eventually get a blog post written, and my house is a little cleaner and more orderly, so maybe procrastination can be positive after all? Yes, it can—if you use it for your benefit. John Tierney, writing in the New York Times, reported on what some researchers are calling “structured procrastination,” or “productive procrastination.” How it works, according to Tierney: Start your to-do list with a couple of “daunting, if not impossible, tasks that are vaguely important-sounding (but really aren’t) and seem to have deadlines (but really don’t).” Fill out the list with “doable tasks that really matter.” As one researcher says, “We are willing to pursue any vile task as long as it allows us to avoid something worse.” Hence my willingness to wash windows rather than sit down to write.

Positive procrastination: another tool I can use, along with the kitchen timer, baby steps, and rewards, to chip away at my resistance to writing and other meaningful projects I keep putting off.

Here’s an observant and thoughtful poem by Lisel Mueller about the way we’ve assigned human characteristics to the inanimate things about us. Mueller lives in Illinois and is one of our most distinguished poets. [Introduction by Ted Kooser.]

Things 

What happened is, we grew lonely

living among the things,

so we gave the clock a face,

the chair a back,

the table four stout legs

which will never suffer fatigue.

We fitted our shoes with tongues

as smooth as our own

and hung tongues inside bells

so we could listen

to their emotional language,

and because we loved graceful profiles

the pitcher received a lip,

the bottle a long, slender neck.

Even what was beyond us

was recast in our image;

we gave the country a heart,

the storm an eye,

the cave a mouth

so we could pass into safety.