Baby, Don't Go

In the natural order of things, children are meant to leave their parents. They travel, go away to school, or move across town, and if we are wise we prepare ourselves for that from, if not the moment they are born, then at least from an age when the inevitability of their departure looms large. If we are good parents, we take satisfaction from their competence and ability to be independent, resisting the urge to hold on or to look back with longing to the time when we took their company for granted.

From the time she was nine, I knew my daughter would be a traveler. At seventeen she went to Serbia, a country made fragile by a war not long over and still staggering under the weight of its divisions. I was nervous about it, but stopping her was not even considered. From there she went to Paris where she lived for nearly a year before coming home to start university. Even then, she didn’t stay still, moving twice to other cities for work experience related to her studies. She always came back, but one day not too long from now she will make a bigger move, a permanent one, or as permanent as anything is in the life of a twenty-something. But her temporary absences served to inoculate me, giving me a defense against the malady of loss.

My eldest son rarely went very far, but even if he was physically present, his thoughts were always on the next thing to do, place to go, friend to see. He left home in a different sense, far more involved with his friends than with his family. Earlier this year he spent a few months away, in a place he wants to live permanently, but for now he’s back home, more often than not out and about. When he does leave for good, whether it’s to a faraway place or another neighbourhood, I’ll be so used to his comings and goings that I might forget that he’s really not here.

But today my youngest revealed that he is restless and eager to be somewhere else less provincial, less familiar. He has already put his plan into action, having quit his job and freeing himself to leave. The news hit me like a bus; without acknowledging it to myself I had counted on him being there, not forever, but for a good long while yet. I feel bereft, and am taken aback by the strength of my reaction. I can only put it down to a mother’s chagrin at the prospect of a finally empty nest – a conventional, classic response.

But there is irony in this. Three years ago I began to spend a lot of time away my children, starting a new life in France with the man I love, and although I came back home regularly, it is I who left them in the first place. The natural order of things was turned on its head, and it was they who had to get used to the empty nest. Somehow I had convinced myself that everyone had come to terms with our separateness, and more than that, that we were all stronger and more independent because of it. That might be true of them, but to my bewilderment, it’s not true of me. It’s an odd feeling, to be the one in need of reassurance that I’m not being abandoned. I expect I’ll get used to it – just like they did.

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Cinque Parole

 www.usageorge.com

Last week, Susan at Bear Swamp Reflections graciously invited her readers to play a meme game—she would randomly pick five words for those interested, who would see what could be done with them. I put my hand up right away, and this is what I got. Thanks, Susan—I hope you enjoy the result!

Adventure

My daughter came to visit us two summers ago, intending to stay for a week and then take off on a whirlwind tour of Greece and Italy with one of her best friends. But some major issue intervened – lack of money or a boyfriend problem, I can’t remember which—and suddenly the friend couldn’t go. I proposed Italy for a week—the two of us—not sure how eager she’d be to go on a consolation trip with her mother, but she’s one of those people who always looks at the flip side of disappointment to see what can be salvaged.

We split up the roles.  I’m hopeless at map-reading and Anne doesn’t like to drive in strange places, so she would tell me where to go and I would get us there. Giddy with anticipation of adventure, we left the Cote d’Azur on a hot July morning and arrived in Genoa mid-afternoon with a very imprecise Google map and a reservation at a youth hostel at the very top of the city.

Built on a series of steep hills, Genoa’s maze of sinuous streets is confounding to navigate, even for locals. Anne gleaned what she could from Google, supplemented that with half-English, half-Italian directions from a long-haired, cigarette-smoking policeman and her own excellent sense of direction, and got us up to the hostel and its spectacular view. Not just once, but later that night in the dark, too!

We drove along the coast, stopping too briefly in Cinque Terre, driving through the rolling Tuscan hills to stay at a fifteenth-century farm , then on to medieval Siena where we shared our supper table with a perfectly blond, newly-wed Swedish couple who knew so much about Canada that we made them honorary citizens. Leaving Siena, we zoomed south on the autostrada, Italian pop music blasting from the radio and Anne’s bare feet propped on the dashboard.

Rome was a bit intimidating to drive in, so once we found the hostel we decided to park the car in favour of public transport. Next morning, we found the rear window broken and a pair of cheap sunglasses missing, but in the beauty salon window beside the car was an invitation to come in for a ten-euro manicure. We accepted (a first for both of us) and figured it made up for the sunglasses.

Rome enchanted us with her possibilities. We walked for kilometres, waited for hours in blazing heat to see the Sistine Chapel, gawked at the Coliseum and marvelled at the treasures that lay around every other corner. We were told off for cooling our feet in public fountains, refused entry to St Peter’s due to my bare shoulders (after having warned Anne that cleavage and navels were non grata), ate fabulously well, and could hardly sleep for the heat and humidity. Four fascinating, exhausting days later, we got back in the car and left the Eternal City feeling like we had conquered it for ourselves.



Gate

Arriving in Pisa, we thought that finding the tower would be a piece of cake, so obvious that we wouldn’t need a map or directions to find it. We drove in circles for a while without success then decided that our best bet was to park somewhere and just follow people who looked like tourists.

The street we were driving along was parallel to a very long, high wall that looked like it might have something important behind it, but no sign indicated what that might be. My eyes were glued to the traffic and Anne, having finally dug out the map, was busy trying to figure out where we were. For a split second, I shifted my gaze to the right, to a small gate in the otherwise unbroken length of wall and the hair on my neck rose instantly.

Perfectly framed by the gate was the bottom half of the tower, the angle of its graceful inclination perilously, astonishingly close to, well, the tipping point. Once inside the walls, we sat on the grass for hours staring at the tower, fascinated beyond all expectation by its defiance of gravity, but that first, startling glimpse of it is among the most amazing things I have seen.


Mediterranean

From the first moment the sea is visible from the autoroute, less than twenty minutes after leaving my home in the hills south-west of Grasse, it is rarely out of sight. Entering Italy, the road passes through a seemingly endless series of tunnels, some more than a kilometre long, and as you emerge from each tunnel onto its companion bridge, you are treated to a stunning view of the sea hundreds of metres below. Sometimes the view only lasts a few seconds before the road is swallowed up by the next cavernous, echoing tunnel, but at others you are given a minute or two to take in the beauty of the coastline and its red-roofed villages nestled beside the vast, sparkling expanse of the Mediterranean.

All along the coast between Nice and where Anne and I left the coastal road near Livorno, the sea is a constant presence. At Genoa’s busy port, its colour seems to change to an industrial grey, but further on at mystical, beautiful Cinque Terre it broods and haunts in deepest blue.

From a viewpoint near my house, only a small patch of the Mediterranean is visible, but in my mind I see not just France, but Italy, Greece and Turkey, Cyprus and Malta, the Spanish and North African coasts, Egypt and Israel. Is there another body of water anywhere with this diversity along its shores?



Reform

We’ve taught them, for sure. Our boys have learned to be respectful –at least on the outside—and they know it’s just not politically correct to cat-call, wolf-whistle, or ogle every good-looking girl they see. That’s a good thing. We girls can walk down the street and not be confronted with the lewd stares and discomfiting remarks of guys who previously didn’t know how to behave properly. That’s a good thing, right? Well, yeah—unless you’re in Rome.

In Rome, it’s all about appreciating a good pair of legs, a fall of glossy hair or an alluring cleavage. The female form draws attention just by the fact of its existence, and it’s as natural as breathing for an Italian male to comment on what pleases him.

A man lounging in the open door of his shoe shop sees us approaching, walking side-by-side along the narrow sidewalk. Anne is tall and curvaceous; with her mane of curly, sun-streaked hair she is a knock-out, and he clearly thinks so too. He gives her a slow, careful head-to-toe appraisal and as we come nearer, his smile broadens and he calls out so the whole street can hear, ‘Bella, bella!’

He has made our day. To hell with political correctness; it feels wonderful to be appreciated for how we look. I say ‘we’ because he was generous enough to include me in his smile, and because I felt I could take some of the credit for my daughter’s gorgeousness, after all.

Subtle

We talked a lot on that trip.

If you have children and a driver’s licence, you know what that’s like, how being in the car with your child invites conversation and discussion of the most interesting kind. We spent hours in the car on the trip to Italy: talking, trying to find a decent radio station, Anne singing, telling jokes, me so helpless with laughter I thought I’d drive off the road.

Sometimes the talk was serious. There had been some major, difficult issues in her life over the last few years, some of them a direct result of a decision I’d made. In the car, the lack of eye-to-eye contact and the distraction of passing scenery means there’s no imperative to keep the conversation going, and that frees you to just toss things out as they come.

She had some things to say, and some questions to ask. Some misunderstandings were cleared up, and some new perspectives were found. As we headed home from Rome, I realized that in that glorious week spent with her alone, there had been a subtle but important shift in our relationship. It would have happened eventually, I imagine, but perhaps not so clearly and decisively as it did by traveling with her, talking so openly, and having to rely on her in ways I never had before.

While she will always be my daughter and I her mother, we would not go back again to being parent and child.

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Within Their Reach

Photo: Paul Yates, Vancouver Sports Pictures 

He was an extraordinarily tall, lithe and muscular young man with the perfect physique for basketball. For lack of self-confidence he had never played it but at nineteen he decided that his physical gifts would be wasted if he didn’t give it a try. A spark was lit, and his decision soon took on a bigger dimension.

She wasn't made to be a concert pianist, no matter how hard she worked or how much talent she had. Her tiny hands frustrated her desire to play more advanced repertoire written for longer fingers and a wider reach, but she was an enthusiastic and capable student whose music-making gave her pleasure.

He set his sights on a career in basketball, an optimistic goal even if he had access to intensive professional coaching, but his own resources were all he had. He kept his dream to himself, relentlessly working out to develop strength and memorizing moves gleaned from watching televised games. He joined a pick-up league and played every chance he got, trying to make up for all the missing years of practice and playing time.

She fell in love with a song she had heard on the radio and brought the sheet music to her lesson. It was a challenging piece, with wide, repetitive octaves for the left hand and big chords in the right – not very suitable for a someone with a limited hand span.

With unwavering focus, he kept at it, often alone. After a couple of years he felt ready to be tested and won a spot on a varsity team. The experience accelerated his progress and bolstered his belief in himself, but he was still a long way from having the skills of a pro. For three more years he trained hard, rarely missing a day, determined to overcome the huge disadvantage of having come late to the game.

Rewriting and shortening some intervals and a few unreachable chords, she found ways to cope with the physical demands of the score, without compromising or simplifying the music. As the weeks went by it came together, and the better it got, the more pleasure she took in it. Her confidence grew to the point where she began to think she could take the risk of performing it in public, at the year-end recital.

His hard work began to pay off; he impressed a coach with his work ethic and potential and made it onto the roster of a pro team. But it was often a brutal and ego-destroying experience; his size and athleticism didn’t guarantee him praise or playing time and for game after game he sat on the bench while his teammates did what he so desperately wanted for himself. He talked himself into patience – training, learning, waiting for his time. Finally, finally, it came, and in the final quarter of a crucial game where the scoreboard numbers leapfrogged back and forth, he sprinted and weaved and soared high.
When the buzzer sounded, his team had won by two points, and they were his points.

And on an evening full to the brim with celebration and pride, a grand piano came to life under the hands of a teen-aged girl who made the music her own. Her face radiated pride and satisfaction and the exhilaration that can only come with having hoped and persevered and succeeded.

These euphoric moments – pure and uniquely human – belonged to them not because they had been held accountable to the highest standards, but because in their intense, consuming desire they had been the very best they could be. They strove to be better than they were before, and in their effort was absolute excellence. Rising to the quest, not necessarily for perfection, but for personal betterment, they honoured us all.

For my son Gregg and my student Rachelle

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