In the Collapse, We Parent Anyway

Yesterday I took my 15-year-old son, Tavi, to the airport for his first international solo trip. Seattle to Frankfurt, five-hour layover, then Frankfurt to Rome, where his father and grandmother would be waiting.

The flight was at 5pm, but I let him skip school so he could sleep in, pack at his own pace, and we could take the light rail with enough time to arrive three hours early. (Is that still the rule for international flights? It’s what I learned growing up, so it’s what I do. Heritage.)

I read the news as we rode the lightrail south, trying not to let it calcify my hope. Climate collapse, fascist creep, techno-feudalism… yes, it’s all bad. Yes, it’s going to get worse. But I still have a home, a bank account, a kid who’s safe. I was grateful he was getting out for a while. It would do him good to get out of the country.

We got to the airport with time to spare. Since I wasn’t flying, I had to apply for a day pass to escort him through TSA and to the gate—a thing I didn’t even know existed until now. He was flying Condor, a German discount airline. I’d never flown them, but apparently it’s half the cost of anyone else… and it shows. At the counter, we were immediately hit with a $30 fee just to check in.

“You didn’t check in online,” the agent said.

“I tried,” I explained. “But since he’s a minor the website said we had to do it in person.”

“Oh,” she said. “Then it’s $30 for me to check you in.”

Cool.

Then it was $120 more for a carry-on, which we had to weigh.

“If your suitcase and backpack together are over 8kg,” she said, “you’ll have to check your suitcase.”

That was not an option. Condor had lost Tavi and his dad’s luggage the last time they flew with the airline, and he wasn’t going to risk it again.

“Then I’ll just put my clothes from my bag on,” he said, starting to unzip the suitcase.

“That’s against the rules,” the agent snapped. “You said it out loud, so now you can’t do it.”

So we stepped out of line and did what any reasonable travelers would do: We cheated physics.

Tavi layered on shirt after shirt, sweatshirt over hoodie, shorts over sweatpants, and stuffed his coat pockets with socks and underwear. I handed him extra pairs to tuck into the tops of his socks. Other travelers streamed past us, barely noticing a huge 15 year old pulling on his 3rd pair of pants.

“I’ll stick this tanktop in here,” he said, shoving a rolled shirt into his underwear. “They can’t charge me for BEING HUNG.”

I laughed, but here’s the thing—while all of this was happening, I felt… nothing. Or rather, I functioned. My brain slid into that old familiar state of calm-dissociated-overfunctioning. We would solve this. There was no other option. My feelings had crawled into a corner and gone offline. All systems redirected to: Get your kid on that plane.

And then something cracked.

It wasn’t him stripping in public or the absurdity of hiding snacks in his socks—it was the flicker of recognition that I had been here before. Not literally, but archetypally. I know it’s not the same—but something about the moment opened a door in me. A flicker of a deeper, older fear. The one who stays behind. The one who layers the socks.

I was her. And she was me. Except instead of sewing anything, I had a rock.

I’d been holding it all day: a chonky quartz crystal from my altar. I don’t believe in crystals, exactly. Not in the “this stone aligns your chakras” way. But I do believe in talismans. I believe that objects can hold energy, especially if you intentionally direct it there. I’m a Pacific Northwest forest girlie, raised among moss and basalt and ferns. Rocks are the easiest way I know to send energy across a distance.

Protection and safety, I’d brain-mumbled into the rock all morning. Safety and protection.

So all morning while Tavi packed and annoyed me around the house (“WHY is he such a picky eater, dear GOD—safety and protection, protection and safety”), I was rubbing this rock between my fingers and pouring every maternal instinct into it.

Holding the rock, I’d thought of when he was four and had a stomach ache, curled in my lap, his head on my chest as I rocked him through it, petting his hair. I remembered the weight of his little body, the heat of his breath, the way my soothing gave him comfort his own system couldn’t yet self-generate. I hoped the rock might carry that memory. That if he got scared somewhere over the Atlantic, or while going through customs in Frankfurt, or even after landing in Rome, he could rub the stone and feel a flicker of that old safety in his nervous system. Not magic. Just rock minerals + muscle memory.

While waiting in line for TSA, I handed it to him.

“I have something for you,” I said.

He took it. “Aww,” he said, soft as anything, and slipped it into his pocket. “Thanks, Mom.”

That’s when it hit me: He’s so grown. He looks like a college kid. He’s funny, hyper-capable, smart as hell. He’s the kind of 15-year-old who talks about the historical construction of adolescence while joking about how the TSA guys had to pat him down.

But he still wanted me to walk him to the gate. He still took the rock.

He doesn’t need me. But he lets me love him anyway. That’s the miracle.

I bought him a $30 hamburger and got him on the plane. I rode the light rail home.

“Text me when you land,” I told him. “And don’t forget you’ll basically be a dehydrated little raisin in the sky. I packed Liquid IV—use it!”

At 4am, I woke up and checked Google Maps. Tavi allows me to have him as my one stalked contact, and his location quickly pinged: Frankfurt Airport,. 35% battery. Five thousand miles away.

The systems are fraying at the edges. We are parenting in the burn-down era, where everything we thought would hold is failing. But also…

I know where my son is. Right now! I can text him. He can text me back. I sent him off with a rock. He took it.

That’s enough miracle for one day.

And when I got home last night, I locked the door. Drank some water. Ate something warm. Tucked myself into bed. Because the truth is, in the collapse, I mother myself too.

I feed this body. I wrap it in blankets. I whisper my own name when the sky gets dark, and I wait for the sirens to start.