Recently, I had the privilege of driving my daughter to college. She is beginning the grand tour, so to speak, of her third year. Bouncing around the back seat were bedding, bags of clothing, a guitar, odd bits of furnishing from our home, and an unfinished knitting project.
Just the two of us on a road trip is a rarity, so I was determined to make the best of it. I think there are things I never told her that maybe I should. Stuff her life would now depend upon. I brooded for a while on what to say and how to begin our umpteenth awkward conversation. I had covered the basics before. But surely there were things I left out. She asked if we could listen to music. I was driving and said sure, as long as she was the one who changed the CDs. And she had to skip any song I didn't like or that started to get on my nerves. So on we went on a five hour drive to her college campus, listening to all manner of music--ABBA, Beyonce, Dolly Pardon, Fleetwood Mac. Each of us joined in the vocals. If we didn't know the words, we made up silly syllables that halfway matched. As the miles passed, we started sounding better. Singing songs we both liked added another layer to a bond I had forgotten we had. Near the end of the trip, the volume blasting and our voices tired, the song, "Gypsy," by Fleetwood Mac, started. I began to hear the lyrics in a completely new way. And it all comes down to you Well, you know that it does It does come down to me, the parent, after all. My kid isn't going to get the valuable lessons about life anywhere else. Not the correct ones. Lightning strikes maybe once, maybe twice Oh and it lights up the night But timing is so important. Parental led conversations with bad timing could light up the night in a bad way. I didn't want to leave a fun car ride to school on a bad note. And if a conversation was to light up the night, then I should just leave it to the gods to throw down a bolt of lightning and let me know when to say something. And you see your gypsy You see your gypsy To the gypsy That remains Her face says freedom With a little fear The beginning of a new college year creates opportunity and anxiety both, even when I was at school way back in the dark ages. I felt it now, and I know my daughter felt it, too. Also, I think all children are gypsies, in a way. Camping out in our homes for only a set period of time that varies with each child. I have no fear I have only love And if I was a child And the child was enough Enough for me to love Enough to love This child was, is, and always will be my only daughter. I love her in ways that I don't even understand. What goes beyond visceral? I can only hope that her cup of love has been filled enough times to weather times of drought that will surely come. But the song calmed me. I had no fear. The conversation, if there was indeed anything left to say, would wait. And somehow I would know when it was needed. (Got that, Zeus?) She is dancing away from you now She was just a wish She was just a wish And her memory is all that is left for you now She was sitting right there beside me. But I knew that later, after I drove away this time and headed back home, our car concert would be one of the memories I would rely upon to pull me through. They say that sons may move away, but that daughters are yours for life. I'm not so sure. Daughters dance in and out and away and back again on purely emotional levels. Things will happen. She will change. She will return to me stronger and wiser. It is what I want. Who wouldn't won't a strong, wise woman in their life? As I looked around the rooms of her new apartment, I couldn't help but think, "Now she will create her own new memories." And as she does so, I wish her faith, and hope. But above all else, I wish I love her. I wish her love in the strongest of ways. And finding that love now becomes her magnum opus. And what I hope she understands is that looking for and finding it is very worth the effort. Along the way, she'll have experiences that she may never speak of--or that I will never know of. And I'm okay with that. "Gypsy" was written by Stevie Nicks and recorded by Fleetwood Mac (1979) |
AuthorKaren Schwabenland--Keeper of a daily blog of written matter, reporter of events large and small, and charlatan extraordinaire Archives
September 2022
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