out of the nest

Not too long ago, I had a baby, a cute little chubby cheeked thing. At least it FEELS like just a bit ago, and I still have my baby weight to prove it, so it must be true. It's an odd thing though—I dropped her off at college today. She was never a clingy child, but oh, how quickly a mom can become superfluous! Claire's actually going a year early, but the fact that she did all the application stuff herself when I wasn't paying attention lets me know she is probably ready, even if I'm not. During the summer I had numerous panic attacks about whether she was properly prepared for the real world. I finally sat down and made a list and I am feeling better about things. I will not claim that I taught her all these things but I did some and she picked the others up somewhere along the way.

The first thing on my list, an item of cruciality, is her ability to make a white sauce, which means she can cook loads of things. Not only that, but she can make a gluten-free, dairy-free white sauce. She can also make killer chocolate kahlua cream cupcakes, a skill that will make friends and influence people. She is not afraid of quinoa and she knows many uses for coconut oil. Her room is right next to the dorm kitchen and she will put it to good use.

She can do her own laundry and has for years. She can also use a laundromat, something that I've insisted both of my kids learn because there will be a period in their lives when they have to do that, and there is no point standing around looking foolish, jingling quarters and wondering which machine to use and where the detergent goes. Along those same lines, she can pump gas. Although there are times I've doubted it and today is one of them, she can clean a bathroom. She can accessorize with confidence and style; I did not teach her this.

I did read her Dr. Seuss and Winnie the Pooh and Laura Ingalls Wilder and the Chronicles of Narnia and the first Harry Potter. I couldn't read fast enough for her liking after that and she politely relieved me of that duty, but I'm pleased that I got those in because they are all critical to a sane and thoughtful childhood. And she continues to read an amazing range of things, including all of Shakespeare and Stephen King and several online scholarly journals.

Continuing on the Winnie the Pooh theme, she knows how to play Poohsticks, something we did with her friends when they were toddlers. A few years back we were at a youth group picnic, and the frisbees and footballs sat unused, the teens nowhere to be found. When I investigated, I found them playing Poohsticks on the same park bridge they had played on when they were younger. It's a good thing to know how to slow down and watch a stick bob in the stream and this is one of my proudest parenting accomplishments.

She loves Bruce Springsteen and she will almost certainly say that I had nothing to do with that. I don't mind her believing this; she probably doesn't remember the Springsteen cassettes I used to play her on her brightly colored Fisher-Price battery-operated cassette player. Last summer her boyfriend's father took them on a pilgrimage to Asbury Park and she got to see Bob Dylan while she was there. That made me happy. Among the things she chose to take to college were two prints of Bruce in concert that her uncle took years ago.

Contrary to what many want to believe about this younger generation, she, like others her age, knows how to work; in fact, this school year and summer she worked two jobs and plans to work in college. One of her more marketable skills is that she can teach someone to read, which is essential to helping others be successful. She can milk a cow—well, sort of—and feed pigs. I don't know how important that is unless one is a cow or a pig or a farmer, but I'm glad her job skills are so varied. And after her first semester at State, she will be well on her way to being a beekeeper.

She has excellent taste in guys. For that I heave a great sigh of relief; there is a possibility that she won't make the same dumb relationship choices that I did. She doesn't feel the need to change to please her boyfriend, nor does she try to change him. And she has a life apart from him. Those characteristics greatly improve her chances of being happy. She has good friends who have many of her same traits, and so I don't worry about her when she's out.

I'm not sure where she got her strong will, but she has one and she has convictions. Perhaps they aren't the same things I believe, in fact many of them aren't. But she never lacks for an opinion (as many of my Facebook friends will attest), and she can articulate a position and support it with facts. She circulated her first petition in kindergarten, one to convince the teacher to let the girls play football too. I still have it. She became a vegetarian at age seven. At age ten, she and some friends started an organization to feed children in Haiti, one that continues today. Last fall she traveled to meet the children she has helped feed. And she can write and read and speak. I am convinced that it doesn't matter what she majors in; someone with those skills will have her pick of jobs.

While she has no patience for bigotry of any kind, she is tolerant when it matters. This is a good thing because I strongly suspect that her roommate was assigned on a day when the housing office was very bored. "What if we take THIS kid and put her with THAT kid?" Riotous giggles ensued, I know they did. "Make sure you put a video camera in the room and throw in some political material to stir the pot!" It may not always be easy, but I know with certainty that she will be kind, and I'm proud that she didn't do the knee-jerk thing and ask for a roommate change straight away.

While hanging out at the church waiting for me, she read the Bible and knows it well enough that she can quote fake Bible verses and almost fool me. Leviticus is her favorite book, which I find odd, but I think she likes reading the arcane rules. This is not to say that she believes in what it says, but belief is not something I have any control over and I'm always bemused by parents who think they do. I'm just impressed that she actually read it. Too many people who claim to live by it have no idea of what's actually in there.

She knows how to take the bus and can get around Chapel Hill/ Carrboro without a problem. Soon she'll figure out the Raleigh/ Chapel Hill bus system. Public transportation can be scary, but once you've learned to navigate one system, you can extrapolate that to other cities. This opens up New York, London and Paris. She'll be okay where ever she goes.

I sent her to Clapping Hands Farm Camp, one of my best parenting decisions. She learned so much there, among them that NO is a power word and must be honored. She got to progress from an annoying younger camper to a trusted counselor and in the process learned a lot about perspective, childcare, and tick removal. Camp's consistent message is that love is really what it's all about.

She can use commas and she even knows what an Oxford comma is. She is dyslexic, but she has made spellcheck her friend, and so even her texts are correctly spelled and punctuated. She can touch type. Although she has flirted with PCs, she is at heart a Mac person. This is important to me because the two kinds of computers support different kinds of thinking, and I am convinced that while PC people keep the world running, Mac people are the ones that will change it.

Are there things she can't do? Plenty, chief among them driving. But she'll learn if she wants to and in the meantime it saves me a bundle in car insurance. Carrying on a long-standing family tradition, she's not so great at math. She doesn't like donuts or watermelon; this causes me concern. Directionality isn't really her thing. I'm comforted by the fact that the list of things she CAN do is so much longer than the list of things she can't do.

As I tally up marks in the plus and minus columns, I realize this is really about whether she will look back with pleasure on her childhood. Living with a sibling with mental illness is no piece of cake, and it often caused me to be absent or distracted at critical times. I know there are no perfect childhoods; divorce, abuse, abandonment, illness, pain, and death are among the things that others suffer. We aren't so unique, but I still have moments of wanting a do-over.

However, the experience of living with Elizabeth and loving her has added a depth to Claire that might not have been there if it were just the two of us. When a friend argues that we are a post-racial society, Claire looks at me in disbelief that anyone could be so naive when her experience living with a sister of color shows her so clearly this is not true. When Claire's friends struggle with depression, anxiety or eating disorders, she is able to see the person behind the illness, just as we hope Elizabeth's friends will do. She knows a lot about the complexity of authority: we've had good cops and bad ones, and we've had competent and incompetent docs. She's seen people in positions to help hurt her sister and she's seen kindness from someone mopping the floor in a hospital. There is enough pain among those who share our circle that she knows the futility of asking "why us?" She has never had the luxury of seeing the world in black and white. In our world, it's all shades of gray.

When Claire was between the ages of two and five, we sat down every evening when we arrived home and had a cup of tea together and talked over the day. That's when it became apparent that this little person had things to say. When Elizabeth became mobile, our tea time came to an end, one might say a crashing end, but I still cherish the memories of those afternoons. As a teen, those times were replaced by her sitting on the end of my bed telling me about her evening, but now that ritual's time is over too. I need to remember that IT will be replaced with something as well, even if it's not yet apparent what it is.

I'm feeling better now. If she will grade on the curve, perhaps I won't do too poorly, especially if she'll give bonus points for the dolphin ride. And I do deserve some credit for not crying today.