I will always cry when you leave

"Don't cry, Mom…don't cry" she says as we stand hugging next to the brightly lit gas station, once more at a crossroads. She will go right and return to her college campus and absorbing new life there. I will go left and walk 2 blocks to my Arcata B&B, the next morning flying to San Francisco, and a few days hence home to Hawaii. It has been a good visit and a rough one. It began with us meeting a couple hours and several phone calls later than she originally said. Her first words after greeting me reflected her shock at seeing me here in this place where she's become so immersed and enmeshed. "Wow, it's going to be strange when I come back to Hawaii—this feels like home now".

Should a parent visit a freshman at college?

In retrospect, I don’t know if I’d recommend visiting one’s offspring at college early in the freshman year. I would, at least, recommend a short visit, rather than the 4 days and 6 nights I haunted the town of Arcata. I missed the HSU Parents Weekend scheduled a weekend earlier partly due to my work schedule, and partially to honor the non-joiner in me who does not enjoy attending football games and other structured activities, but I can now see the advantages—at least if your kid ditches you, there are others in the same boat. I’d advise visiting with a spouse or friend (or a spouse who is a friend) because you may end up with plenty of free time at unexpected moments. Bring lots of money so you can treat starving students to meals, purchase clothes for your darling before winter hits, and replenish her mysteriously low bank account. And should you have issues with your family of origin, a preparatory visit to your friendly neighborhood therapist wouldn’t hurt either.

Don’t get me wrong; I am very glad I made this visit. Important communication, as well as mis-communication, transpired between mother and daughter, I got to explore the only town in America run by the Green Party in a beautiful and blessed part of the country, I met Kalei’s circle of friends, and some good times were had by all. Plus, I returned with notebooks full of writing fodder for my blog.

The stages of adjustment stuff I’ve read says that this period just past midterms during freshman year is often a post-honeymoon time when the realities and discomforts of academics and communal college life begin to set in and homesickness rears its head (see blog entry “Advice from the parents network” below). Well, my daughter showed no such signs, which is good, right…right? Was the experience that follows unique to us, was it universal, or a bit of both? You be the judge, as you read the epic novella that follows.
.
True Confessions

Sitting on the wood floor of my flowery bedroom at the Victorian B&B, she sighed. "Ok, I don't want to hide any more, I hate keeping secrets...ok, I smoke cigarettes". I had suspected as much before she left for college, but was still shocked to hear her say it. Why is it always a shock to realize our kids keep secrets from good old progressive us who did most everything under the sun back in the day. Hearing her words, my heart sank, but I knew from experience this was not the time for lectures (it never is but does that stop us?) but rather to listen and gather information. She has smoked for 3 years (yikes!), smokes “less than a pack a day” (yikes!!), and rolls her own cigarettes using Drum tobacco. It costs much less this way and “if it makes you feel any better, I roll good for a girl". All I could do was laugh at this. Auwe! Is this the new feminism? Some, but not all of her friends smoke tobacco; she’d like to quit, but not now, and "when I have a child, I'll definitely quit…and probably be a bitch for 9 months". I eventually responded that I wasn't happy she was doing this, but that I was very glad she trusted me enough to talk about it. She asked if I minded her smoking around me. Yes, I do mind, I said, but definitely prefer to be with her when she smokes rather than have her run away from me so she can smoke. She did roll and smoke cigarettes around me a few times, but I think, having made her statement, she decided she wasn’t comfortable smoking around me.

Humboldt County is the marijuana capital of the nation, so of course I raised that question, noting she did not have to answer. Later in conversation she volunteered she is a regular user of the weed. She basically believes her use of tobacco and cannabis does not significantly harm or impede her, as the young always do, as I once did. "She reminds me of someone,” responds Mark with his usual, sometimes annoying, equanimity when he hears from me of the confessions. In college, he also used Drum and enjoyed the ritual of rolling his own cigarettes. He quit tobacco just before meeting me at the ripe old age of 21. Yes, she’s always been like him, and has become more so with each year, "except” he adds, “she's much happier at this age than I was". Indeed, this may prove to be our saving grace. Kalei may be using these substances as social ritual, perhaps as distraction from responsibility, but it does not appear she's using them to numb deep inner pain, which is when one worries the most. She loves her little world on this beautiful campus with its redwoods, coastal views, and lovely accessible spaces to hang out with a group of compatible new friends. While she may not be academically challenging herself, she appears to be handling business enough to make good grades on midterms. Equally encouraging, she seems to be intellectually engaged in some classes. She spoke at length about her “Econ” class, with its depressing but accurate concepts for describing the rules that run the world. She reports finding her English course introductory and tedious, yet she admires the teacher, and went on at some length regarding the intricacies of iambic pentameter.

Meeting the Friends

She very much wanted me to meet her friends--- a sign of trust, though at times I felt she needed them as a protective shield against too much motherload. All seemed bright, caring and tolerant, though not highly intellectual. Some were athletic, some volunteer with troubled youth or care for children, and some are hapa, like her girlfriend Rena who is part Hispanic, part Jewish. Only one, Matthew, native of Ivory Coast in West Africa, is reported to "study all the time"—and perhaps for that reason I did not meet him. We ended up spending short bursts of time together--3 hours seemed to be the max before she became restless and ready to return to her other life. So we'd meet in the afternoon, usually a couple hours and several phone calls after the time she suggested the day before. One morning, I poked around the cornucopic, circus-like Arcata Farmers Market while she spent hours searching for her lost key card; other times she was busily engaged in reaching and rounding up friends to accompany us. In my rental van, I drove places they wanted to go and treated them to food they usually can't afford. At Target in the nearby town of Eureka, I bought Kalei warm boots, clothes and a down comforter while two friends, Rena and Solomon, patiently tagged along. We then walked around picturesque Old Town Eureka looking at massive Victorians and stopping for a snack by the waterfront where Rena crews with the HSU team. On another day, accompanied by two other friends, Dan and Hank, we drove up the coast where we climbed down rocks, walked across beautiful black sand beaches, and then stopped at a cafe in a nearby town to meet and eat with another friend, Brett, who'd just gotten off work. Kalei mentioned to me over dinner one night that when Hank’s parents drove up to HSU to celebrate his birthday recently, he had queried his friends: “Would it be really terrible of me to say I don’t want to have dinner with them on my birthday?” and they had responded unanimously: “Yes, it would, now go eat dinner with them”. Yet here he was hanging out for an afternoon with someone else’s parent, apparently happy as a clam. Kalei was anxious to hear what I thought of her friends, pleased when I noted things I liked about them, and reported that her girlfriends thought I was “awesome”. All my daughter’s friends were amiable, easygoing, and appreciative companions; it seemed that only she could not tolerate much time in my presence.

Ambivalence and Conflict

My 18-year-old woman-child was often conflicted, loving me dearly, needing desperately to escape, believing she should spend more time with me, sometimes cycling through these emotions within a few minutes. And I was taken by surprise--somehow I hadn't expected us to pick up our conflicts where we left off. "You plan everything and I don't live that way" she exclaimed one day. I did not expect to spend all the time with her. I had plans; scenic coastlines to drive, cute towns to poke around, coffee shops to visit. Yet it seemed to me I spent lots of time on hold waiting for her, shifting gears and trying to be patient, reminding myself that I was in her world and there to visit when she was available. Our last day was the hardest. We met after her class around noon, deposited money in her bank, and picked up some sandwiches for a picnic in the Arcata forest. Unable to reach her friends to join us, she reverted to escape mode, suddenly feeling sick, needing to do schoolwork, and unexpectedly I had an open afternoon. Dang airlines, my original plan was to spend only 4 days in Arcata, but the free United mileage ticket required traveling a day later. Still, we might have just hit this rough patch a day earlier. Maybe we just got as close to honest open conflict as we could. It reminds me of the cycle I go through with my mother when she visits--oh God, can this be true? ---where I do all I can to accommodate her for days, finally snap and fight, and then we're at our best after that. So, here Kalei and I found ourselves; after a bruising ending to our afternoon, we retreated, both feeling shitty-- with plans to meet that evening for dinner. I felt sad, rejected, heartbroken. She called to apologize, and I had to say "This is natural, these mixed feelings between mothers and daughters, but it just seems that you keep needing to escape from me" and she replied "Mom, don't say that. Don't take it personally. I love you. I just feel tired and sick and I haven't done any school work". So I tell her "ok, if you say you're feeling sick, and that's the reason we need to cut short our afternoon, then I believe you". But I don't truly feel that way-- I am taking it personally. As I drove up the coast to the fishing village of Trinidad and looked out at magnificent coastal vistas, I let it settle, hung out with the sadness, and with notebook in hand, staring out to sea, wrote my way out of the fog. I was ready to try again at dinner.

Last Supper

She came over to my B&B early, after taking a long nap. I massaged her neck and shoulders and she said she felt 10 times better. Monkey-mom to the rescue...harmony restored via the ancient ritual of grooming. Our dinner together was lovely, warm, satisfying, comfortable, loving…and short :) She was really ono for Japanese food, and as the miso soup warmed her tender throat, I said knowingly "That's your comfort food, Kalei", and she nodded in recognition. And when it was time for her to leave, I cried. One thing I know for certain about us is that I always will.