Wheels Up

So today I dug up this old video from February 17, 2006: the day Simon learned to ride a bike. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and today I finally gave in to this embarrassingly obvious metaphor for what’s about to happen: this boy is going to college tomorrow.

It pretty much captures the classic parental point of view, doesn't it? You jog alongside, excited and proud – offering encouragement and occasional warnings. And then the child cheerfully pedals away, getting smaller and smaller in the distance.  But of course from Simon’s perspective he’s growing bigger by the second. He’s got wheels, baby! There’s nowhere he can’t go, nothing he can’t do. That's the metaphorical connection I was remembering. 

But what struck me most when I watched it again (aside from how obsessed we both seem to be with getting some great footage) is the agonizing moment after I tell him to slow down when he gets to the green car. I have a vivid memory of telling myself over and over, Okay, now, let him stop on his own. Don’t tell him to stop. Don’t shout out anything cautionary. Let him stop at the green car by himself. Trust him. He’ll do it. He'll stop. Just let him. Don't say anything. Like that, over and over and over – right up until the instant I opened my mouth and shouted “Okay! Stop your bike!”  

I’m afraid I haven’t gotten much better at restraining my maternal micromanaging instincts – particularly in these last few weeks, when I've become this out of control ticker tape machine spewing a steady stream of instructions and advice. Just the other day, as we were buying XL twin sheets for his dorm room, I blurted out, “I probably should have brought this up sooner, but you do know you have to take the sheets off and wash them every week or two, right?” I'm not sure he’s ever done this – clean sheets just appear on his bed when he moves back and forth between his parents' houses – does he even notice? He waited a painful, patient beat. Then: “Mom, I’m not going to respond to that.” 

I still don't know what that means, exactly. But there are reassuring signs that he has absorbed a few valuable lessons in the nearly 19 years he's spent with his dad and me. Wednesday night he came downstairs with his guitar while I was cleaning up the kitchen, and wanted to know if I’d ever heard this great song. “It’s called ‘I Was Dancing in the Lesbian Bar,’” he said, strumming the opening chords. Now, “Lesbian Bar” is an old, old favorite from my post-college days that I don’t think made the transition from CDs to iTunes in the years just after Simon’s birth. It was a little surreal to hear it again, in my living room, coming out of the mouth of this boy who came out of my body. I had this moment of panic, like, Oh no! Did we forget to tell you about Jonathan Richman?? But also this feeling of relief, like, Well, you clearly had enough good sense to like his stuff when you heard it, which I guess is even better. Teach a man to fish, right?

And I remember a couple weeks ago, he came back from a late night trip to the grocery store and told me he’d given $20 to a lady in the parking lot who said she needed gas money to get to Portland. “Maybe she was lying,” he shrugged. “But even if she was, I figured she definitely needs that $20 more than me.” So maybe we got the important stuff across, anyway. I'm sure he’ll figure out a laundry schedule eventually. 

All this month I’ve been seeing post after post from friends online whose kids are making this same transition. Photos of hatchbacks stuffed with suitcases, laundry baskets, guitars, tennis rackets. Stories about flying home alone, weeping discreetly on the plane. A lot of these parents are people we met when Simon was in preschool – so yes, of course their children are heading off to college on the same schedule. I haven't seen some of the kids in ten or twelve years, so it’s a bit of a shock to see these towering, beaming, vaguely familiar young adults posing in their school sweatshirts. But honestly, their parents don’t seem any less surprised than I am. 

Everyone's sharing these sentimental “off to college” pieces, too. My favorite is the one where Rob Lowe describes himself hunkered down in an airplane seat with his sunglasses on, hoping his son won’t see him crying. “I am amazed that so much water can come out of the eyes of someone who dehydrates himself with so much caffeine.” I feel you, Rob.

Me (right) and the incomparable Laura Nagle, on the day we 

met in 1987,  before she became a Gehrenbeck and before I 

had ever heard of Jonathan Richman.

I’ve been trying to remember what it was like to get dropped off at college myself: the nervousness, excitement, anticipation – and the flood of relief that the waiting was finally over and I could really, actually GO. I've seen all of that washing over Simon too, as the day draws nearer. I never really thought about how my dad and stepmother might have felt as they helped me carry my stuff upstairs to my dorm room. One of them must have snapped this picture of me and my new roommate, hair twin, and future lifelong friend. I have no memory of their moment of departure. They told me later that there was some kind of "President’s Tea" they were invited to, which they realized was basically a ruse to pull clingy parents away from their offspring. “Welcome to Swarthmore – now, leave!” President Fraser apparently told the crowd. “Your kids are ready to quit saying goodbye to you and start saying hello to this new adventure. So get in your cars and go!” 

 

I go back to the bike video one more time. Watching it now, hearing the pride and excitement in my voice – it’s a good reminder that it wasn’t poignant or bittersweet at the time. I was just super excited for him, so proud and happy to see him master this new skill that would carry him out into the world – and yes, away from me. 

At five years old he didn’t want to be away for long, though. I love that he comes back to make sure I got it on video. “Is it a good show?” he asks. “Is it a really, really, really, really good show?”

It’s a great show, baby. I can’t wait to see the next act! Once I get all this water out of my eyes.