Thanks, David Bowie, for giving me a starting point.
* * *
Maryanne was the first woman I ever made cry. It was the day I left for bootcamp, and she had driven me to the recruiter's office. Unsure of what else to do, I let her sob against my should for a few minutes as we sat in the front seat of her car, then said I had to go. She was still crying as I walked away, and just as I'd seen in so many movies, I didn't look back--something like that happens and you know what's going on behind you. Maryanne and I had been dating since we'd graduated from high school a few months before, and we pretty much were approaching the point of hot and heavy. (Sidenote: A few nights earlier we'd double-dated with my then-best-friend Gary and his girlfriend, and as we were driving back to my house for cocktails in my parents' Ford Maverick a dog committed suicide by running into the front bumper of the car.)
Before heading to the recruiter's office that morning, my sisters and parents lined up in a sort of receiving line to give their goodbyes. My sisters were eagerly waiting for me to get out of Dodge so one of them could take over my bedroom, and I remember that after I hugged my mother, my father said, "You can hug me, too." I probably wouldn't have if he hadn't said that--kind of a male-thing, I suppose. At least for us.
Then, I was gone for 9 weeks, returning home for 2 weeks before heading out to my technical school in Pensacola, Florida, a pit of a place if ever there was one. I learned to drink beer there, however, so maybe even the worst pit has value. Bootcamp wasn't much of a challenge, really--I was used to people telling me what to do, so I fit right in. In many ways that's all a person has to learn in the military: do what you're told, tell people what to do. Maryanne and I must have said goodbye another time, but I don't remember the details. I do know that it would be years before another living creature would run into the front bumper of my car.
But I do remember most of the flight to Pensacola on a Continental Airlines jet, how deeply sad I was as, conspicuous in my dress blue uniform, I turned my face away from the person next to me and stared into the darkness. I had a pen with me, and I found a scrap of paper and wrote new lyrics to Rod Stewart's "Mandolin Wind," lyrics I planned to show to Maryanne one day. I was 18 and immature and leaving home for the first time, and I was not especially happy. Months later when I flew to Japan where I would spend over 2 years, I didn't feel half as much sadness. Perhaps I was more confident and mature, and perhaps because Maryanne and I had finally parted ways meant I had less to feel sad about.
Of my many regrets is never asking my parents how they felt when I left. They had let me ride and walk and hike without overly protective supervision for most of my childhood, so I had a good foundation of independence. Still, I have often wondered if they wanted to talk to me about what it felt like to watch their only son walk out the door--not just to college, not just to his own apartment, but to someplace a good way around the world.
In the next few weeks I will try to imagine what they felt: soon, my oldest son will be heading out to nearly the same part of the world I went to. He's older than I was when I left home, probably smarter and more self-confident. He is approaching this journey with excitement and external confidence, and he, too, has been raised to be self-sufficient and free thinking. I want to tell him how he'll feel at different points: sadness, anger, frustration, loneliness, isolation--most at different times but now and then all at once. But just as I was concerned only about myself and my sadness aboard that Continental Airlines flight, now I am imagining how I will feel as my son walks through the security checkpoint in San Francisco's airport--walking through a type of portal that takes him both literally and figuratively from one world to another. At that point he'll truly be on his own, and I can only hope that his mother and I have succeeded in giving him what he needs.
Before heading to the recruiter's office that morning, my sisters and parents lined up in a sort of receiving line to give their goodbyes. My sisters were eagerly waiting for me to get out of Dodge so one of them could take over my bedroom, and I remember that after I hugged my mother, my father said, "You can hug me, too." I probably wouldn't have if he hadn't said that--kind of a male-thing, I suppose. At least for us.
Then, I was gone for 9 weeks, returning home for 2 weeks before heading out to my technical school in Pensacola, Florida, a pit of a place if ever there was one. I learned to drink beer there, however, so maybe even the worst pit has value. Bootcamp wasn't much of a challenge, really--I was used to people telling me what to do, so I fit right in. In many ways that's all a person has to learn in the military: do what you're told, tell people what to do. Maryanne and I must have said goodbye another time, but I don't remember the details. I do know that it would be years before another living creature would run into the front bumper of my car.
But I do remember most of the flight to Pensacola on a Continental Airlines jet, how deeply sad I was as, conspicuous in my dress blue uniform, I turned my face away from the person next to me and stared into the darkness. I had a pen with me, and I found a scrap of paper and wrote new lyrics to Rod Stewart's "Mandolin Wind," lyrics I planned to show to Maryanne one day. I was 18 and immature and leaving home for the first time, and I was not especially happy. Months later when I flew to Japan where I would spend over 2 years, I didn't feel half as much sadness. Perhaps I was more confident and mature, and perhaps because Maryanne and I had finally parted ways meant I had less to feel sad about.
Of my many regrets is never asking my parents how they felt when I left. They had let me ride and walk and hike without overly protective supervision for most of my childhood, so I had a good foundation of independence. Still, I have often wondered if they wanted to talk to me about what it felt like to watch their only son walk out the door--not just to college, not just to his own apartment, but to someplace a good way around the world.
In the next few weeks I will try to imagine what they felt: soon, my oldest son will be heading out to nearly the same part of the world I went to. He's older than I was when I left home, probably smarter and more self-confident. He is approaching this journey with excitement and external confidence, and he, too, has been raised to be self-sufficient and free thinking. I want to tell him how he'll feel at different points: sadness, anger, frustration, loneliness, isolation--most at different times but now and then all at once. But just as I was concerned only about myself and my sadness aboard that Continental Airlines flight, now I am imagining how I will feel as my son walks through the security checkpoint in San Francisco's airport--walking through a type of portal that takes him both literally and figuratively from one world to another. At that point he'll truly be on his own, and I can only hope that his mother and I have succeeded in giving him what he needs.
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