I had hand surgery last Wednesday, nine days ago, and as you might expect, it was not particularly pleasant. I elected surgery under local anesthesia, so to calm my nerves, the doctor prescribed two Valium an hour before the operation. I took them and felt like a puddle, amorphous and spreading in the surgical chair, and so that I could hear nothing doctorly, I popped in headphones and listened to music. Although I have a playlist for everything, I had no playlist for hand surgery, but I now have a recommendation: country music. For when activated, my iPhone shuffled immediately to “Friends in Low Places” and then “Family Tradition” and then “You Never Even Called Me by My Name” and then “Folsom Prison Blues.” And so on. There was nothing artificial about that intelligence, for when one hears of death and drunkenness and longing and prisons — all of the things that populate rock bottom — exactly how bad can hand surgery under the influence of a nerve block and Valium really be? When the doctor finished and gently placed enormous silver splints on the two affected fingers on my right hand, I pulled out my earphones and sang, “Metal-fing-uh!” just like the James Bond theme, and I said, “No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!” And we all laughed.

I quit laughing a few hours later when everything wore off and the pain set in, and for the next few days, I adorned the couch, taking Vicodin, sleeping fitfully, and giving full reign to every ounce of grouchiness I could muster — which was, by anyone’s account, an impressive measure. My mother called on Saturday, and I was rude to her, and that fact shamed me. So I asked Chris to help me put on my prettiest dress, and the two of us went to the grocery store for one of those strange dates that married people have. Thanks to the splints (which really did not match my prettiest dress), everyone asked me what happened, and I snarled, “I am getting old.” It was a true answer, and honestly why I needed the surgery: The doctor removed some cysts caused by arthritis.

The woman behind me in line focused not on my splints, but on my dress. She liked it, she said, and she liked my shoes and my glasses and especially my spirit. And still a little grouchy, I told her that it had taken me almost 48 years to grow into my spirit, but that I was coming to terms with it. She replied that she was 74, that she was still growing into her spirit, too, and that things were only beginning for me. Then she laughed and hugged me.

I cannot tell you how much that helped. I started thinking of my hand surgery as “starter surgery,” a painful but small step toward even greater physical decline. This was nothing! Just wait until joints failed. Just wait for the days of big scars and big scares. Just wait. I quit whining and started being kind again and moderated all of my activity with this mantra: Left hand help the right hand. And for the last five days, I have gotten by, and I have gotten better.

But the left hand cannot help the right hand drive a stick shift. That was a problem, for the car my son and I drove to Athens yesterday had a manual transmission. I was in the passenger seat, and it was my son’s drive, and he charted an unfamiliar course that can only be described as a long-cut. (I saw places in Georgia that I had never seen before — that’s saying something — and I let him be entirely in charge — and that’s saying something, too.) He starts college at my alma mater in July, and we were coming up for cheerleading tryouts, and our trip has involved a few hours of tryouts and a lot of time together.

On the drive and on our walks through campus, I have felt like I was passing a baton. As a former high school cheerleader, I reminded him to yell from the diaphragm. He now knows all of the best places to eat 30 years ago. I pointed out buildings and activities, new additions and landscaping, dorms and opportunities. I made him look at foreign study brochures. I urged him to do well and to do good. I encouraged him to do things that made him interesting. I told him of my mistakes and my regrets. All to this end: Here is something I love. It now belongs to you.

That something was not just the college: It was being young. The uncertainty, the carelessness. The possibilities. The many paths. The anxieties. The pressure. Even with the occasional starter surgery and all, it is nice to know the value of things that comes with the years, the steadiness and the relief. This trip has had us discussing tragedies (mercifully) external to us — the death of four college students in a car accident, the suicide of a friend of a friend two days ago — and while I tell my son to embrace challenge, not to be afraid, to live every day fully, I am not certain that he really knows what I mean. Compared to the 74 year-old woman in the grocery store line, I probably don’t have such a great idea of it, either.

But I am trying. I shooed him off late this morning — what 18 year-old boy wants to walk around a college campus with his mother? — and with his backpack on, he looked like he belonged. (Ever kind-hearted, he told me that I looked like I belonged too, that I could pass for a professor.) Alone, in broad daylight, at lunch, I ate a meal that made me grateful to be alive: mussels, fries, and a nice glass of Cote du Rhone. I sat at the table eating slowly and thinking about the meaning of life, an endeavor greatly aided by the slightly decadent food and the slightly dissolute glass of wine. With no dessert, for even age requires its sacrifices, I walked into a beautiful April afternoon and found a spot in the shade.

And there you could find me, on a park bench near a fountain, smack dab in the middle of one of my favorite places on earth, reading a book. All of this youth swirled around me — plans for graduation, lovers’ quarrels, calls home for money, heavy backpacks, non-arthritic hands. So much beauty, so much time, so few scars, so little experience. I finished my book, all the way to its unsatisfying end, and I swear I heard something ask, What do you need? What do you need? Nothing, I whispered. Absolutely nothing at all. I closed my book, heard the impressive crack of my knees as I stood, and walked through that familiar place, hoping to catch up with my son.

ALC