On Sylvia choosing CalTech

She's Leaving Home
------The Beatles

Wednesday morning at five o'clock as
the day begins
Silently closing her bedroom door
Leaving the note that she hoped would
say more
She goes downstairs to the kitchen
clutching her handkerchief
Quietly turning the backdoor key
Stepping outside she is free.
She (We gave her most of our lives)
is leaving (Sacrificed most of our lives)
home (We gave her everything
money could buy)
She's leaving home after living alone
For so many years. Bye, bye
Father snores as his wife gets into her
dressing gown
Picks up the letter that's lying there
Standing alone at the top of the stairs
She breaks down and cries to her husband
Daddy our baby's gone.
Why would she treat us so thoughtlessly
How could she do this to me.
She (We never thought of ourselves)
is leaving (Never a thought for ourselves)
home (We struggled hard all
our lives to get by)
She's leaving home after living alone
For so many years. Bye, bye
Friday morning at nine o'clock she is far
away
Waiting to keep the appointment she
made
Meeting a man from the motor trade.
She What did we do that was wrong
is having We didn't know it was wrong
fun Fun is the one thing that
money can't buy
Something inside that was always denied
For so many years. Bye, bye
She's leaving home. Bye, bye

Sylvia, Tears of Joy and Drops of Love

Sylvia is out at a movie during her prom with ....... a friend
.......Can't quite tell her I was out at one that night too.
Sylvia is crying and crying our months, rivers of crying
.......Where are my water drops coming from, why, why now?
Sylvia is choosing her schools, her rules and finding her reasons
......Mine are freaking running out and crumbling notes of loneliness
Sylvia is coming into her days of touching the skies
......Where did the time go, how did it slip so fast far away
Sylvia questions the things she sees, knows and believes
.......Nothing I ever knew makes any sense at all

My Bird from the nest, I can cry too, time to say things with my eyes.

My daughter is choosing to go to Cal Tech. I'm very happy for her. Of course I dropped a huge glass bottle of mustard all over myself to celebrate today her decision. That follows taking her there to this stealer of children CalTech which did look like Hogworth's in pouring rain a week ago and getting soaked to my marrow. It felt like another medical test. Or a novel. So soaked finding our way to her dorm for the weekend, shaking I wondered if the man passing us really said, "Hello girls.".I wanted to run off the campus, fly, she looked sort of undone as I left her there. Actually I did run off. No idea of my way home, lost my orientations completely. But she made friends, saw things, got ideas, visioned future. I love April Rainsong.....and I think the April Rains maybe took my girl.

April Rain Song

Langston Hughes

Let the rain kiss you Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops Let the rain sing you a lullaby The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk The rain makes running pools in the gutter The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night And I love the rain.

Ah well.....you go years watching and raising your children. And it feels like a blink. The heartpain of these transitions is a sour, sticky, prickly sweet kind. My weekend with thoughts about this child who is rapidly opening the front door is almost bittersweet. Verses in our lives.