Writing the Wrong
AUTUMN
Quattro Stagioni: Autunno (1993-5) by Cy Twombly.
When my son was in utero I wrote him a letter, which I intend to give him on some momentous occasion, though most parents with growing children would agree that in the first few years momentous occasions seem to pop up with alarming frequency. Their first steps or words or successful poop in proper receptacle and not say on maternal grandmother's Chinese silk rug, can all be considered important milestones. Naturally I am waiting for a more appropriate one, like his wedding or graduation from high school on which to present him with what my wishes were for him. I was a young mother and not very experienced in life. I was naïve and very idealistic, even though my marriage was not an easy one, and I always felt a small, gnawing emptiness in me because I was not pursuing my dreams full throttle. I had very romantic notions of motherhood.
My son started high school today. He was up early without being nagged (too much), sporting a fresh haircut and new clothes. He was all nervous energy. I could see both the youthful bravado of a young adult embarking on something new, and the little boy who was not quite sure what he was walking into.
I felt everything he was feeling and then some. My high school career was, shall we say, less than illustrious. I barely graduated, being somewhat of a thrill seeker and ne-er do well, but that has come in handy in raising a teenage boy. As I told him once when he tried to sell me some story involving missing homework, I said, “Listen kid, I practically invented bullshitting your way out of class, so spare me.” I made things hard for myself when I was his age, refusing to focus and being somewhat short sighted. Nowadays kids are so much more ambitious and perhaps too driven by their parents' own agendas.
The one thing people don't tell you, is how vulnerable you become when you become a parent. In some ways you are rendered even more vulnerable than the mewing, pink thing they place on your chest right after you give birth because you become aware of how much less significant you are now with the sudden presence of this new being, who will command almost all your attention for the coming 18 odd years.
The fact that another human being's safety and happiness are more important than your own is actually liberating in some ways. It frees one up from being so self involved, thus opening up the possibility of a deeper connection with the world at large and real intimacy. But, on the flip side are the feelings of helplessness, and pain and anger when your child experiences heartbreak or deep disappointment or rejection. It is so much more acute than when you experience it personally. Everything is magnified because of the love and deep attachment to this smaller creature, who is depending on you to show them the way.
Autumn Effect at Argenteuil (1873) by Claude Monet.
The high school that he is attending is ranked number one in the state and one of the top schools in the USA. It is a public institution that expects nothing less than the absolute best from its students. My kid knows that and it worries him as it did me when I attended a similarly ranked school. But, here is another rub to being a parent; you must be very very careful not to project your own fears and mistakes on to them. They are not you, even though they used your DNA and in my case, my body as a gelatinous condominium for nine months, to form themselves. They are not tied into your karma or your demons. They do not have to take it on their shoulders—even the good stuff—they may just choose to forge their own path, studiously ignoring all the resources offered them by you. Because I am a veteran at being a teenage slacker and the price that one pays for that, I can guide my kid away from the minefields associated with this. But he dismisses most of what I say as maternal hysteria, possibly because I am screaming like a harridan at him at the time, but who knows? I find my own failures and agonies creeping up on me when he does or says something that reminds me of myself (the not so great stuff) and rendering me so anxious I sometimes trip up on my words of wisdom. I have to constantly remind myself that these are MY fears, MY past, and MY mistakes that he has not even made yet. He is an almost clean slate, with a bit of weighty baggage being the child who saw his parents divorce, and his parents being from completely different family backgrounds in both temperament and culture. But he is still brand new in so many ways and such a better version of both of us, that I must not impose any of my baggage on him. Well, on anyone really right?
I guess watching him move on to the next phase of his journey and one that will set the tone in some ways for his adult life, I am re-living my adolescence all over again. I feel old and very young at the same time. But I must remind myself of the words of the great Khalil Gibran, as I would urge all you parents who are sending your shiny faced youngsters off to school this fall to do: “Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.”
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