In the northeast, there always comes a day in the middle of April that spring jumps out in front of you. It makes you feel as if you just walked into a surprise birthday party. The spectacular yellows of the forsythias and daffodils; the brilliant white of the blossoming apple trees, along with the blending gimlet greens of the budding leaves makes even a dying soul feel reborn. On the afternoon of April 15th as I winded my way along Route 17 along the Beaverkill River, all the hope of spring was in front of me.
I was headed to Ithaca, New York, halfway between arriving and leaving behind all the noise back from whence I came. It was already past the time my youngest daughter, Mary Kate, had expected me.
“I will be there in 45 minutes,” I said to MK over my cell phone. “Yeah, yeah that means an hour,” my wise cracking child snapped back.
Since Mary Kate became a teenager we found our way into a relationship where we do not cut each other any slack. She has struggled living in, what she sometimes believes is, the shadow of her older sister. She has also been intuitive enough to understand that her parents are flawed and her family isn’t like the Walton’s. I am finally coming to figure out that any tension or anxiety I feel towards MK has to with my realization that her entire persona mirrors her dad as a 19 year old. The past few years as I watch MK going through one of the biggest crossroads in her young life, I also see a young man walking beside her with the same hidden confidence.
In 1979, that young man who I still catch a glimpse of, was a confused and insecure soul walking the campus of Muhlenberg college in Allentown Pa. His older brother was a Senior at Brown University with a job, a wife, and a life lined up. I was in the midst of finding a person I used to know, or one I wanted to become. I had been searching for an easy way, yet I quickly realized everything I was ever going to get out of life was going to come the hard way. In the fall of 1978 I was literally starting from scratch. The first day I stepped on campus I did not know a single person nor had I met anyone prior to my arrival. I struggled to make a Division III basketball team. I was going to class and studying more intensely than I ever had just to get “B”s and “C”s. Against every fiber of my independent bones I pledged a fraternity. A self- created image of myself as somebody special was evaporating. I was experiencing life as a regular everyday freshman in college, where no one gave a damn about New Paltz, Richie Siegel, or a basketball that said I scored 50 points in one game. Through it all, as emotionally painful as it was for me, I was gaining an understanding that there are times in all our lives we must live in an ordinary world.
By the time I arrived in Ithaca it was only a few minutes before MK and myself were walking downtown to her favorite Mexican restaurant. For mid- April it was unseasonably warm in Ithaca which probably helped diffuse any coolness that existed in our father -daughter relationship. I could sense an opening to tell MK all the things that have been on my mind this past year. As we waited for our table and munched on chips and guacamole I got a chance to hang on her every word. My usually brooding, unsettled daughter was opening up to her dad. She talked about her upcoming field hockey scrimmage that I would be watching the next day. I listened to her tell me about the coaches’ new strategy for the upcoming season. She opened up about her classes, her professors, and her study habits. She went on about her friends and the social scene or in her eyes a lack of one. It was the most conversation the two of had since she was six years old. Even displaying so much positive energy she still talked about longing for something else. In the same sentence, she spoke of transferring to California and who her roommate was going to be next year at Ithaca. I looked across the table at Mary Kate at 19. I was focusing hard to put the memory of this night in a place so I could always retrieve it.
As MK talked into the night I listened harder than I ever had. I was thinking of all the things I wanted to say to her, things I would have loved to hear from my dad in my freshman year at college. At the time I struggled to find who I was and who I wanted to become. Mostly, I want to tell her how proud I am of her. I wanted to say to her that she had proved to herself, her biggest critic, that she had the fortitude and the independence to survive and thrive without her parents. I wanted to tell her how much better she had adjusted to college life than her father did all those years ago. I wanted to tell her how all the trials and tribulations she was having now were all valuable investments to her future. I turned my head away from my daughter’s eyes for a moment to clearly see that angry and scared boy who was many painful years away from becoming a man.
May 1st is always one of my favorite days of the year. It is a day that resonates with hope and possibilities of all that lies ahead. Truly, all things seem possible and all our dreams experience a rebirth. Two weeks past my solo trip to Ithaca I am in my car alone again, only this time headed home. Laura and Donna are in a car tailing me closely while returning MK’s car to Kingston. We had driven up together to have an opportunity for the four of us to be together for a few days. By the time I reached Roscoe the rain had gotten heavy; still, it did not disturb the bevy of fly fishermen casting their lines in the Beaverkill. I began to think of all the salmon swimming upstream trying to make it home to their birth place. For the first time I thought about the cycle of life they endured. They started in a stream and found their way to the ocean only go to against the tide back to their home stream to lay their eggs. I was picturing MK and myself as rebellious salmon swimming hard against the current. We were determined to not let of any of the lines cast get in the way of our journey. It didn’t make sense that we were traveling side by side. I had already been to the ocean and back. I had gotten tangled in so many lines but somehow had found my way home and laid my eggs. MK and myself were rushing through the cold water navigating the fishermen’s traps. I had been through the maze before. I knew the way back, I knew the route of least resistance. I wanted to tell her how to avoid the bait that was in front of her. I had made so many mistakes on my own voyage. If she would just let me help her, if only there was a way to tell her how the hooks floating on the surface had scarred me. My day dream ended as Laura and Donna went zooming by approaching the exit to Liberty. I had to remind myself I was alone and MK was left behind in Ithaca to complete her finals. I couldn’t help but smile knowing she was never going to listen to my tales of trying to head up the river. She was far too busy creating her own path. She is going to all the places I have been. Watching her growth during this year I am confident she will find her way back up stream in much shorter time than her old man. And she will arrive far less damaged.
