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Driving to Brazil
I’ve listened to @jameslileks‘ ruminations on his daughter’s departure to Brazil with a slight sense of dread. Gnat is a year or two older than my eldest, so his commentary over the years has given me a preview of what to expect. Today, I had my own “daughter in Brazil” moment.
After picking up the kid from high school this afternoon, I let her practice driving on the way home. Just then, a song kicked in from my 7,500-plus list in iTunes shuffle. The song I would use to rock her to sleep as a baby:
The Rio de Janiero band Os Mutantes created a genre of crazy psychedelic pop called Tropicália by the locals. But for this song, they handed the mic to a Bossa Nova chanteuse named Rita Lee for a swanky midcentury take.
I remembered holding my 4 lb. 12 oz. preemie in the glider rocker as this song played … only to look over and see her behind the wheel in heavy traffic.
The nest is feeling a little empty this afternoon.
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Oh, Jon, these transitions are so trying–and so gratifying. I’m sure you’ve prepared her well. Try to celebrate her moment, as best you can!
Gnat no more, dude.
I remember feeling a little bit wistful when he announced that he wasn’t going to refer to her that way on the Bleat anymore.
Thanks, Jon. Now you’ve managed to make me feel old.
I’m crying too. And she is your baby girl!
Six weeks ago my daughter was starting Kindergarten. Today she is teaching it (3rd year).
Five weeks ago my son started summer camp. This June will be 5 years in the Marines.
Four weeks ago son number two was seeing his first play. In May he graduates with a degree in Theater Management and moves to Philadelphia.
Join the club, bucko. Time flies, we’re old and their world is new.
I won’t pretend that it all worked out okay, because it didn’t; it ended, in a single morning and a rushed farewell at the airport. Of course fatherhood never ends, , but the day-to-day stuff, the learning, the old habits, the catchphrases and call-backs, the shared memories that evaporate as they grow, the lovely minutia, the precious inconsequentialities – they go for good. That sounds depressing, because it is. Here’s the consolation: the run-up to the departure is the worst, and it’ll lay you low again and again.
After it happens, you are surprised to be standing, and things go on.
At least the world is smaller now – this afternoon I got a flurry of pictures on WhatsApp from Daughter at a coffee shop on the other side of the planet, and we had a chat. It was sweet, and gave me a smile that’ll last all day.
My girl’s wrapping up her junior year and insists for college “I have to get out of this state!” We’ll see if scholarships allow that, but it’s always a little stab in the heart. Not to say I blame her; that’s why I joined the Navy. And I can’t complain too much since her younger sister is two years behind her.
Nevertheless, a belated thank you for the Bleats giving me a heads-up on what was just down the road.
Northern Arizona University and Flagstaff feel like a whole different world from Maricopa County. And it is “in state” tuition too!
I have heard plenty of Rita Lee – por exemplo – but never in English.
Not that this is at all informative or helpful. But neither is it really alien.
As reader of the Bleat since 97/98, I recall fondly the multi-day announcement that Gnat had arrived (She’ll always be Gnat). She’s 11 months older than our first child, and the Bleat has been a genuine Crystal Ball – from the toys, (Polly Pocket, Pokemon) to the interests (writing and drawing) – exactly one year after reading about Gnat’s fascination with something, it’s repeated here at the Casa de Estrogen.
The drivers license came last July – in our narrow winding foothills roads, it is genuine panic daily when she heads out to school, and waiting for her to return. Our youngest is two years behind her big sister, and is already talking about her learner’s permit.
She graduates high school in May – for years she has insisted that she wanted to go to college out of state, but the sobering reality of the immediacy of graduation, mixed with the genuine recognition that she doesn’t know exactly what she wants to do, and that what she wants now at 17 will in all likelihood, be something completely different when shes’ 22, has guided her to a small school about 90 minutes – 2 hours away… which just happens to be my late father’s hometown. Entirely her choice, we played no part in the decision, other than to encourage her to explore her options. So a drive-able distance – away, but close enough to be home in 2 hours.
Her playlist in her car is about 50% my music – including songs I would sing to her in, yes, a glider rocker, when she was an infant.
It has been our journey to this point. Soon it will be just her journey – I’m both thrilled for her, and apprehensive at the same time. What an absolutely odd dichotomy.
Like.
Yes indeed. I think I prefer the decampment to another continent to being 2 hours away – ripped the bandage off as fast as possible, and was proof that she had remarkable courage and curiosity.
As for the playlist – I played a lot of 40s music when toting the tot around. To this day she has a remnant affection for it. It’s the small seeds. Plant as many as you can.
It never gets easier.
I’m feeling all these wistful achy feelings watching my little grandson grow up now. Seems as though he was born just yesterday.
I love this Joni Mitchell song that my daughter sent me a link to when my grandson was born.
Just a short while ago, I was in the throes of some baby blues with my three week old daughter and a friend came to visit with her three year old daughter. Oh god, I thought. This kid will never be three years old. Now she’s about to turn 40 and is in upper management in a nearby US Attorneys office. How did this happen? Am I really that much older, too?
Yes. Yes you are.
And please don’t blame yourself for her career choices.
Not likely.