Radient Purpose

My daughter is taking Calculus at college. Two hours nightly she works through problem sets with her father; he in Concord, my daughter in Vermont. It is hard, hard work given her challenges with numerical sense; an outcome of trauma to her left lobe. I remember slogging through partial differentials with my father, face to face, as an engineering student. It was hard work and math was a strength. This tenacious purpose -- to make good in Calculus -- to enable her to go to vet school gives ME strength. It allows me to sleep at night, knowing that this purpose burns in her.

I am dreaming of having a purpose and I think it is about identifying all the digital appliances (soft and hard) that can automate the things that are hard but trivial. Isabel forgets where her phone is. There's an app for that. Her concept of time is completely different that the world around her. A shower can last for 60 minutes. Days and weeks seem to be inter-changable. Meals are often missed. There must be an app that corrects for this. Perhaps my instantaneous decision to go to engineering school, +30 years ago, was a preparation. Likewise, my husband's mathematical talent was a gift in preparation.

Blazing with Potential

Remember that when I first began this sporadic blog, I used the phrase 'blazing with potential' to describe the Winsor girls, en mob, at a Roxbury Latin play.

And Isabel seemed so angry at the mob, and the scene, and I felt her anger and my own.

And now a phone call with Isabel is deep with moments of potential. A concern or brief annoyance or even anger that turns soft and aware so quickly. Her growing wisdom of herself and the world feels inevitable. She listens deeply and connects. I hear here becoming stronger and clearer about what she can become. Her deep, deep keel and abundant creativity makes her blaze. I love you dear Isabel and all that you are.

Immense Presence

My daughter announced she was going to Montreal.  Finis.  I fretted and devised alternative plans - try staying in Cambridge for a weekend - close to home.  She said "I am going to Montreal".  She went to Montreal. She had a memorable weekend. My daughter can go to Montreal. 

Redemption

My friend Bob, when listening to my news of Isabel, managing her freshman semester marvelously well, emerging, said 'update your blog'. And I realized that this was a sort of annunciation; words in the midst of thousands of distractions and confusion that are essential and important. I've thought this through over the past 10 days and finally am here.

Isabel's annunciation came several weeks ago in the midst of a highly charged and awkward social entanglement. She said: I am not lost. I have a vision and I am pursuing it. At 19 I was lost, and purely by grace, emerged a decade later. 30 years hence - purely by grace - I am able to hear my daughter state her vision. That is the redemption. My own grasping - a weakness for pessimism has not dampened Isabel's ability to identify her future.

Home again in 7 days.

Unbearable Lightness

15 days from now my daugher will be a freshman in a college in Vermont. I repeat this to myself and to others with the same unfamiliarity and disbelief I had when becoming engaged. I say, "I am the mother of two college aged children" or "My duaghter is going to Landmark College in the fall. " I pretend that this is like thousands of mothers saying that their daughter is going to college in the fall. I bought dorm room things at Target.

The dumpster arrived last week and I began to 'throw out'. I had piles of consult write-ups from Children's Hospital and IEP team meeting notes. I had carefully filed them, copied and forwarded them to nice people in Isabel's ever expanding universe. Gone. No more.

And part of this throwing out was archeological unveiling and the old life that emerged - now laid bare. So I feel shakey wondering what is next for Isabel and for me. I taught her how to reocrd her own voice mail on her cell phone. She deighted over this creative act - one more step to independance.

I feel lighter- the excrutiating weight of guilt and fear somewaht abated as August 28th nears. Like air, like water, like sleep - a deficit that is somehow replentished.

The Going Away Section

Isabel leaves for Thailand the day after today.  And approximately 10 days later she returns.  She will attend a 'vet' adventure session for 2 weeks and 2 weeks later we drive her to her college in Vermont.  Another parent from her high school - from where she graduated 4 weeks ago - noted how we had common 'deer-in -the-headlight' affects the night she graduated - in a gorgeous college building on the north shore of MA.  And - on that night - I was unable to feel anything.  I was spent.  This evening as the bags get packed - I am trying hard to connect with some emotion and I can't really figure it out yet.  This is part one of going away.  

Graduating

Last summer Isabel claimed the storage space under the front stairs. She washed the concrete floor with semi toxic chemicals with exhaust fans roaring. She convinced her father to go paint shopping and painted her bedroom ceiling with 6 different test swatches. She primed. She painted. Many discussions. This coincided with the beginning of senior year and in retrospect - it demonstrated her desire to hide forever in our house in the woods. All happening while she started a new highschool +20 miles away - with a 45 minute van ride twice daily.

And yet she has had such growth in the last 6 months: volunteering at a hospital, taking the SATs, applying and being admitted to college, planning to go to Thailand in July to work with elephants. Going to the prom.

The hiding space has been abandonned for several months. Last night I moved the displaced suitcases and rollar blades back to there storage space while contemplating the symbology of it all.

And we went to the lcoal high school award program since she got an award for her volunteering. And all the beautiful young ladies and men - full of the future - were charmingly cool and sure in their place as they made their way across the stage. But Isabel, dressed in a marigold tunic from our visit to Mumbai, with gold high tops, ran to the stage and turned to the audience and waved and smiled broadly - working the crowd as only she can.