My father, fathering my 19 year old self :)

FATHERING For Whom The Alarm Bell Tolls:[ALL EDITIONS] Ed Lowe. Newsday. (Combined editions). Long Island, N.Y.: Apr 15, 1989. pg. 03

MY BRAIN long ago developed a father's alarm system. It dings, when triggered. It responds to stimuli that appear innocent and non-threatening but actually are foreboding and even terrifying. Certain Sunday morning telephone calls can set it off, for instance, or civil questions posed too sweetly.

"I have a collect call for anyone from Colleen, in Plattsburgh, New York. Will you pay for the call?"

. . . ding . . . "Yes, of course. Hi, Colleen."

"Hi, Dad! How are you . . . ?

. . . ding ding . . .

" . . . and how was your trip to Disney World?"

The mind races. Colleen is asking how I am. When did she last ask that? 1979. Also, this is Sunday morning. Sundays, Colleen rises at the crack of dusk. Also, her voice is sweet and melodious, as if she were rehearsing a television commercial for a breakfast cereal. This is another man's Colleen. How am I, her father? And how was Disney World? What could these questions mean? What is she leading up to? I keep hearing my friend Bill's warnings: Eddie, They're assassins. We are surrounded by assassins. They operate without anesthesia, these kids.

In an attempt to give her the benefit of the doubt, I talk to her over the dinging and the ruminating in my brain. I try not to sound suspicious, skeptical; not to sound fatherly. After all, she will be 20 years old this year. Maybe she has completely passed through the stage she entered when she became a teenager, when she developed a sarcasm gland. She was wonderful at her sister's wedding - happy, ebullient, involved. Perhaps I should reprogram my alarm system, at least until the boys hit their teens.

"Disney World was okay," I tell her. "I mean, you know me. I love to stand on line for forty-five minutes with fifty-thousand other people, sweating. I love to watch twelve-hundred dolls singing, `It's a Small World After All,' over and over and over and over, until I can escape to another long, hot line.

"But, the boys had a great time, and I survived. I made friends with the bus driver from the hotel. He called The Magic Kingdom, `Rat World,' so we got along with each other right away. I must tell you, now that I think of it, I had one sort of nice, nostalgic moment that involved you, directly."

"Really?"

"Yeah. We were sitting at one of the luncheon places, eating our deep-fried plastic, when I looked across the way and saw the exit ramp from the Swiss Family Robinson tree house . . . "

"Oooh!" Colleen squeaked a high-pitched, little-girlish whine of reminiscence. Twelve years ago (which suddenly felt like 12 days ago), I took the girls to Disney World. Puffy-faced with a homicidal sunburn we all had acquired the day before, our first ever in the Florida sun, Colleen fell forward while exiting the Swiss Family Robinson exhibit and belly-flopped on the pavement. We drew a small crowd as we wiped away tears from her burning cheeks and blood from her scraped knees, and hugged her and stroked her hair.

"Oh, I remember that!" she said. Then she abruptly changed the subject. "Dad, want to hear what I did?"

. . . ding ding . . .

"What do you mean, what you did? What did you do?"

"Well, Wednesday, Kate, Michelle and I decided to go to a Grateful Dead Concert . . . "

. . . ding ding ding

The mind resumes its racing. How many concerts is enough, especially Dead concerts, with thousands of 20-year-old Volkswagen vans and 40-year-old bearded guys in tie-dyed shirts?

" . . . in Greensboro, North Carolina."

DING DONG DING DONG

"So, we got in the car . . . "

"YOUR car?" She drives my late father's 1976 Chevy Nova. Faded-maroon, garnished with dents, it seems to be slouching toward automotive senility, sinking into the pavement. People applaud when she returns to the house from 7-Eleven.

" . . . and drove to North Carolina."

"Colleen! I don't believe this."

"We got there in the middle of the concert, so we were bummed; but we knew there was another concert the next night. So, we stayed overnight in a Quality Inn . . . "

"Well, at least . . . "

" . . . parking space. We slept in the car, behind the motel. The next morning, we made signs, like, `Need 3 Tickets!' We walked around town, holding them up."

Billy's right. She's trying to assassinate me.

"Finally, this guy sold us three tickets for forty dollars each, so we were dancing around all day, like, `Yay! We got tickets! We got tickets!' Then we went to the concert. We gave the guy our tickets, and he says, `These are counterfeits.' "

"Oh, Coll!"

"Yeah. We were so bummed, we got right in the car and drove all the way back. But it was fun. We got back last night. For the last two hours, we were cheering the car for making it."

"Colleen."

"Yeah?"

"You're broke, right?"

"Yeah. Well, not completely, but, yeah, close. I got a few more days' worth left.

"It's nice to know you're alive. I love you."

"Love you, too, Dad."

Brave Moments, and Time Itself.

No, seriously, where does the time go?  So cliche, and so true.

6 years old now.  And a few things on my mind I'd love to keep alive in memory in cyberspace as I'm sure I will soon forget, as I have so many things.  Swimming, Gold Shoes, and ah crap, there was something else that I seem to have forgotten already.

So Cassidy's been taking swimming lessons for over a year now, which was miraculous in itself as she was never ever keen on getting in a pool before that.  So across from her gymnastics a new pool opened up, and she adamantly said I am NOT taking swimming lessons.  I said we're just going to look at it.  This place had a gradated pool, like a shoreline.  We looked through the window at all the toys and props and things the teachers there use, the happy splashing children, and Cassidy looked at me and said, "Fine.  I'll do it."  I might have signed her up whether she liked it or not, but boy did this make it easier.  Having grown up on the water, I am adamant about swimming as a life skill; one you don't get to choose like gymnastics or dancing.  But behold, she LOVED it - just not getting her face in the water.  But at level one, you don't have to.  Now we're in level two.
She was getting used to it, a little, last spring, but the whole summer passed and all of soccer season before she got in this pool again.  The first week I watched her teacher dunk her under water, and the shock and horror when she rose back up, and soon after, the tears. My heart watching her through the glass window, oh!  I don't know why that teacher dunked her, and as a teacher I know that we make mistakes all the time so of course I hold no malice, but it was a struggle the next week to go back.  "I'm not going," she said.  And cried big, real, alligator tears.  I called my friend, a swim instructor, and asked for help.  Cassidy got on the phone with her and she gave the best advice: "you have to make scary bubbles.  Wear goggles; you want to see where you are under there, don't you?" etc. like this. (it might have helped that this is a mom she adores, the mom of her "boyfriend," which is a whole other blog for another day...)  It was enough to placate Cassidy, enough to get her in the car to give it another shot.  I spoke to her teacher, and the other kid didn't show up so Cassidy had a solo lesson.  I forgot about the goggles myself, but I watched Cassidy tell her teacher "I need goggles" and she ran off to get them.  And under she went, swimming with a kick board, dunk kick ... dunk kick... dunk kick...
And me!  Cassidy had cried those big tears hours before, and now there I was, pride from my feet to my crown swelling up and bursting out of my own eyes.  Oh my God.  As toddlers we spend so much time assisting, caring, guiding, helping, holding, soothing, etc.  Now in a phase that I'm sure will never end when we ask of and witness our children be brave on their own, having given them tools to handle themselves, and watching these moments unfold where we are helpless to assist, and witness to them breaking through a fear.  OH my heart... I shed some quiet tears knowing I could have fallen on to the floor bawling.  Hooray!  Hooray!  After that, I needed a nap.

And the golden shoes.  These golden sparkly shoes I bought at Marshalls on clearance for ten bucks, ridiculous, shiny, kind of hilarious shoes.  She loves them, of course - and another milestone - now she can tie her own shoes, as of some weeks ago - another one of those raised eyebrow smiling moments, a mothering joy and sorrow of growing independence, and growing independence.  But this one morning, my refrain of "hurry up, come on, we gotta go.  hurry up, let's go!" ... ugh... and the damn shoes weren't tied, and as it still requires a bit of concentration from her, I bent down, let's get this done dammit, we are late ... and there my fingers on these sparkly damn shoes, gold shining on my face and this illuminated moment that screamed STOP!!!!!!  JUST STOP FOR A MINUTE!!! STOP!!!
Do Not Miss this Beautiful Moment of Tying Sparkly Golden Shoes on your Almost Six Year Old.  Do Not Miss This.
I was so thrown back, so amused and sad and wistful and happy and proud and delighted and devastated all at once.  Time goes way too fast.  Tying sparkly shoes, such a pleasure!  Such a delight!  Happy shoes on a happy girl and here I am rushing it, quick, let's go, hurry up, now, god dammit, we're late, get your jacket, come on...  Stop.  Don't miss this.

That said, I can't remember the third thing on my mind, and gonna be late for school if I don't go wake up the girl Right Now...  sigh.  and soon I will probably be saying hurry up, come on, let's go... but I will try so hard not to.