My daughter, my technical middle child (she is all of 2 minutes older than her twin brother), has begun her singer-songwriter career, performing to small audiences around where she lives in Maryland. She left home to go to college four years ago, and left home for good two years ago, now. Last year, she declared herself a Maryland resident, leaving New Jersey in her rear-view mirror permanently.
She is a woman after my own heart. If it ain’t working for you, leave it behind and move on with your life.
What’s courageous about her move is this: it was her choice. It was not a circumstance that was forced upon her, and she didn’t need to leave to save her life. Or did she?
She sent me the recording from her last gig and I sit here at my computer awash in tears. I waited until I was alone at my desk to listen, playing her gift as I worked. I was not prepared for how it would affect me. Most of her songs are reflective, they sound like therapy. Everything she experienced in this house, in this town, in her schools, in our family, is coming out in her music. Some is nostalgia, but a lot of it is pain. Young people feel more acutely, I think; it’s the first time they are experiencing a lot of things (or maybe the first time they can articulate what they are feeling?) – pain is sharper, joy is livelier, love is lovelier. As the mother of this woman who is processing her pain, it’s really hard to separate my reaction from the intention of the song.
When I write here, I try to turn whatever uncomfortable thing I am feeling into something to laugh about. Or a rant rooted in anger at something. Socially acceptable subjects, just a little bit vulnerable but not too much. I haven’t touched those really difficult things in my writing. When I listen to her, I vacillate between pride that she is speaking (singing) her truth and shame that I have contributed, directly or indirectly, to all those painful feelings coming out in her songs. My daughter’s songs are all those uncomfortable things, those vulnerabilities, laid out bare. She has far more courage than me. I am so proud that I know this woman, that by a miracle of biology, I am related to her.
