Musa, mihi causas memora

Two bike rides is the standard on our weekends. 

Saturday, over one bridge to Marin County and then over the Golden Gate to San Francisco and then a local (= Berkeley/Emeryville/west Oakland) ride.

Sunday, over another bridge to San Mateo County and then back over a fourth bridge and then a local ride, this one to Richmond.

Charlie was high energy a couple of nights last week and especially on Friday night and Saturday night, stomping-running and stopping just short of crashing into a wall (he holds out his open palm to stop himself). Sunday afternoon, he looked intently at me and slumped in his brown chair between bike rides. Sunday night, with my parents visiting, he got into the brown chair and fell asleep with my great aunt Renna's afghan draped over his knees, after a couple of rounds of purposeful stares and of retrieving and putting away his swim bag from the basement.

Charlie swims on Mondays at school and getting the bag and setting it beside his blue book bag is some way to mark the weekend becoming the week. For the past few weeks, Charlie has gotten the bag, put it back, and gotten it again, some three or four times (as if he can't quite believe he does get to go swimming every week?).

It's unremarkable for Charlie to be unsettled in transitioning away from the weekend. This past we have sensed an extra frisson of worry, because Charlie is

• suspecting Spring Break, and a break from the lovely school routine, is coming? (At the end of April.)
• relieved and then weary now that the sun and warmth have come back after a cold rainy week last week? (Charlie must still be figuring out the seasons here and wondering, will blasting summer heat come soon?)
• wondering if we're truly here in California to stay?
• something else?
• having overheard Jim and me talking about plans for his birthday party in mid-May, steeling himself to be 17?
• suddenly being struck by the enormity of all the change in his life, in our lives?

(Muse, tell me the reasons - Virgil, Aeneid 1.8)