Disturbances in the Field

My daughter was much more organized moving into the dorm this time around. I won't say my work is done here, but the balance has shifted considerably. She had a long list of things to do in preparation, and she worked through it last week in order to be ready to go once she arrived back at school. She worked full-time at Grinders right up to move-in day, and the summer job will be there for her if she wants it during holidays or next summer.

It was raining the morning of Helga's departure for fall semester at Northeastern State U., but she packed most of her stuff in waterproof containers, so we only had to cover a few items with the WWII vintage poncho I use as a tarp. Stereo, TV, and computer were all in plastic bags which were in boxes (or vice versa), and they all fit snugly under the poncho in the bed of the Ranger. We drove through on-and-off storms, but we were covered. We listened to opera on NPR, then 1980s "light rock" on a Mansfield station, then something on WKSU.

Since were went up a day early, the dorm itself was NOT a madhouse, for a change. A couple of nice young men gave me a hand up the three steps with the heavily loaded cart, allowing me to make fewer trips up to the fourth floor with more stuff each trip. The new roommate, Amy, had already moved in, and the former roommate, Megan, now suite-mate, had made a full report by e-mail. Helga saw and chatted with the former roommate's new roommate, Emma, on our way in, so we're all accounted for. The nametags on the doors of the dorm are a representative catalog of popular 80s names, even though the families moving them in are as different as the day is long.

Helga had pre-ordered her books, so we went down the hill to DuBois Bookstore to pick them up. She already had the French book, so she saved some money. By that time I was starving, so we went looking for a place to eat and ended up at Frank's Place downtown, a kind of funky bar/restaurant across from the old train station, now a swanky restaurant, on South Water Street. Wooden booths, four TVs with baseball, football, and horse racing, a pretty good chicken breast sandwich with guacamole, and excellent fries! The service was adequate, and the clientele was friendly if a little loud. I would go back.

I enjoy these day-trips to college towns, especially my old stomping grounds, where I still halfway know my way around. But that balance has shifted, too. As Helga has learned where to find things in town and on campus, I have forgotten most of it, so now she explains to me where things are and how things work. I will probably miss those trips when the kids are finished with school, but that will be a while yet.

We hugged good-bye, and she got out at the dorm. I didn't even stop to work out before driving home, as I usually do. My body needs exercise between the 2-3 hour drive up and the 2-3 hour drive back. What was I thinking? It was not quite 7:00 pm, a perfect time for a taiji form in the gardens over by the library or in an empty corner of Memorial Gym. I must have been preoccupied with completing my mission and pushed on home in clear weather.

I also didn't work out when I got home around 9:30, but instead had a piece of quiche and a gin and tonic, walked the dog, and read myself to sleep with Lynne Sharon Schwartz's Disturbances in the Field, a conceptual memoir disguised as a novel. I was deep in the chapter about her uptown education, and it was hard to put down. A lot has changed in 35 or 47 years, but a lot hasn't. It still matters who you choose to hang out with and where you fit.

Spending a lot of time in other people's stories has its costs as well as its rewards. Meeting Helga's friends brings to mind Schwartz's friends (and vice versa) at Barnard circa 1958. I hear their conflicted, competitive conversations and start to see their faces, clothes, bodies, and attitudes - lots of attitude - all set in my own crudely idealized Eastern private college: one part Woody Allen's "Bananas" and one part Redford and Streisand's "The Way We Were." Meanwhile, the real daughter has real friendships at her own real Midwestern state university. There's a twisted kind of disconnect alongside the vivid connection.

The next day I was, to put it mildly, not at my best. Lethargic and uninspired, I couldn't get in gear to do any of the million tasks in the house or yard, so I took a nap and made more coffee. Okay, I fixed the spacing of a few boards on the back gate, that's about it. The weather was great. Gven and her friend Hallie were working away on the kitchen shelves, but a morose kind of neutral flatness was the best I could do.

What finally got me moving was the errand of putting Helga's French books in the mail - the ones she didn't need to buy but had left at home. I wrapped them tightly in an old FedEx box, duct taped it shut, rode my bike to the post office, slapped a label on it, and she should have it by Wednesday. I'm still useful. Like Martin Sheen in the opening scene of "Apocalypse Now," I just needed a mission. So I rode up the bike trail to Plumb Road and back, about an hour-long ride that I needed badly.

She called me today to say that her friend Maureen is in four of her classes. She sounded pretty happy about that. After a glitch in the food service system, her Flash Card (campus debit card) works, so now she can eat. It's all good.