That Dizziness
Our daughter, Elaine, came home from Sweden for Christmas. But as Epiphany approached and she readied to leave—a new semester and her students beckoning—it hits me again, she’s truly launched. Fully cooked as she explains it once to her mother, Marianne. Our only child turned thirty last November, but we celebrated in December, first thing once off the plane, so her birthday and Christmas didn’t slide into one another. Never a problem before when she lived stateside.
During her Christmas visit, in our kitchen, her girlhood kitchen, she’d walk in, a young teen looking for ice cream until I blinked and the grown woman stood there brewing tea. Or we three would watch The Muppet’s Christmas Carol for old time’s sake, as we do every Christmas, and we’d have to trace the first time at the theater, then only two screens, now six. And tales of the VHS cassette at a Christmas Past. This time, she downloaded it via Netflix, our DVD gone missing. We three snuggled on the living room sofa under Christmas lights to view it on her laptop. Same movie, same family tradition, fulfilled for another year. Our new family crèche: father, mother, adult child.
Who knew, walking around campus with her would be Memory Lane. She got her tuition in order one last time. She finishes her Master’s in May from SMSU. One online class completes her degree, this girl who as a high school junior took my sophomore-level lit class. She was one of four high schoolers sprinkled amid twenty-some college students. She scored the second highest of the lot, and I was tougher on her than the others. And as a seventh-grader, she went with us to England and France, thirty students and faculty and her, the youngest—impressing the priest giving us a tour of Canterbury Cathedral with her knowledge of Thomas á Becket and his murder. Now, she’s living in Sweden and teaching English.
Who knew her old bedroom would be stripped of high school memorabilia. That her university mementos would be mostly gone as well, as though both her high school and college life belonged to a previous owner’s daughter, moved away long ago from this house.
It made me dizzy. This girl walked in; I double-take when she spoke like an adult. She made sure I’m steady on my feet—she did witness me recently slip and fall on the ice—but I’m robust and resilient, certainly not frail. Her dresses at Christmas that made her luminous, this kid who scoured thrift shops and consignment stores and close-out racks. It made me dizzy, having dinner with her and a high school girlfriend ten years married and living down South for as long. Like the flowers of yesteryear, where are their prom dresses and band uniforms now?
It made me dizzy, this tween of mine who said she’s sprouted her first few gray hairs. She fell asleep on the sofa, jet-lagged; I covered her with a blanket, but she was a junior high kid home from her first ever “didn’t-sleep-at-all” sleepover. We went to the latest Star Wars downtown, but inexplicably she and I were home one bitterly cold afternoon watching the original series on VHS. An unforgettable father/ daughter snow day. She asked for the car keys and I thought, where’s her car? That 5-speed I taught her to shift? That hatchback I taught her to parallel park?
And now, it’ll be full Spring when Marianne and I venture to Sweden before we hug each other again. She’ll have grown more. Not I, I’ll stay the same. But she’s catching me in age, it seems. I am sure I’m staying the same while she rockets ahead in years. My girl a woman. This woman growing up beyond my ken.
This semester, she’ll be the only one of the three of us actually teaching. Marianne’s on sabbatical. I’ve retired from the classroom to write. But Elaine remains in the trenches, prepping, grading, caring for her charges. How could this have happened? I blinked and it did.
And it all makes me dizzy.
Our daughter, Elaine, came home from Sweden for Christmas. But as Epiphany approached and she readied to leave—a new semester and her students beckoning—it hits me again, she’s truly launched. Fully cooked as she explains it once to her mother, Marianne. Our only child turned thirty last November, but we celebrated in December, first thing once off the plane, so her birthday and Christmas didn’t slide into one another. Never a problem before when she lived stateside.
During her Christmas visit, in our kitchen, her girlhood kitchen, she’d walk in, a young teen looking for ice cream until I blinked and the grown woman stood there brewing tea. Or we three would watch The Muppet’s Christmas Carol for old time’s sake, as we do every Christmas, and we’d have to trace the first time at the theater, then only two screens, now six. And tales of the VHS cassette at a Christmas Past. This time, she downloaded it via Netflix, our DVD gone missing. We three snuggled on the living room sofa under Christmas lights to view it on her laptop. Same movie, same family tradition, fulfilled for another year. Our new family crèche: father, mother, adult child.
Who knew, walking around campus with her would be Memory Lane. She got her tuition in order one last time. She finishes her Master’s in May from SMSU. One online class completes her degree, this girl who as a high school junior took my sophomore-level lit class. She was one of four high schoolers sprinkled amid twenty-some college students. She scored the second highest of the lot, and I was tougher on her than the others. And as a seventh-grader, she went with us to England and France, thirty students and faculty and her, the youngest—impressing the priest giving us a tour of Canterbury Cathedral with her knowledge of Thomas á Becket and his murder. Now, she’s living in Sweden and teaching English.
Who knew her old bedroom would be stripped of high school memorabilia. That her university mementos would be mostly gone as well, as though both her high school and college life belonged to a previous owner’s daughter, moved away long ago from this house.
It made me dizzy. This girl walked in; I double-take when she spoke like an adult. She made sure I’m steady on my feet—she did witness me recently slip and fall on the ice—but I’m robust and resilient, certainly not frail. Her dresses at Christmas that made her luminous, this kid who scoured thrift shops and consignment stores and close-out racks. It made me dizzy, having dinner with her and a high school girlfriend ten years married and living down South for as long. Like the flowers of yesteryear, where are their prom dresses and band uniforms now?
It made me dizzy, this tween of mine who said she’s sprouted her first few gray hairs. She fell asleep on the sofa, jet-lagged; I covered her with a blanket, but she was a junior high kid home from her first ever “didn’t-sleep-at-all” sleepover. We went to the latest Star Wars downtown, but inexplicably she and I were home one bitterly cold afternoon watching the original series on VHS. An unforgettable father/ daughter snow day. She asked for the car keys and I thought, where’s her car? That 5-speed I taught her to shift? That hatchback I taught her to parallel park?
And now, it’ll be full Spring when Marianne and I venture to Sweden before we hug each other again. She’ll have grown more. Not I, I’ll stay the same. But she’s catching me in age, it seems. I am sure I’m staying the same while she rockets ahead in years. My girl a woman. This woman growing up beyond my ken.
This semester, she’ll be the only one of the three of us actually teaching. Marianne’s on sabbatical. I’ve retired from the classroom to write. But Elaine remains in the trenches, prepping, grading, caring for her charges. How could this have happened? I blinked and it did.
And it all makes me dizzy.
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