Daughters and Demonstrations

My daughter Llara has been in my mind more than usual. The 2nd anniversary of the Iraqi war was the trigger. Two years ago when the bombs began to fall she was in the air on her way to Geneva to look for work, basing herself with me in my tiny flat. We had already discussed how we could co-exist between her territory-marking messiness and my neurotic neatness.

I am pretty much a non-directive parent, encouraging her in what she wants to do, only pointing out some things she should think about. I have complete confidence in her either to make the right decision or the ability to correct a wrong one. However, I have a trace of Hillary Clinton in me. She answered “Gosh, I’d miss her,” to the question “what would you do if Chelsea became a Republican?”

Almost as soon as she landed that March day in 2003 I said, “We are going to an anti-war demonstration in Bern on Saturday. This is one of those situations if you say no, your inheritance is at stake.” Since my writing has yet to produce Danielle Steele-like monetary results, this is not a bad threat. I don’t think she believes that anything she does would ever cause me to deny her. I can’t think of anything either, but I won’t tell her that.

“Mother, mother, mother, I’d go without you,” she said, once again giving me the that’s-my-kid feeling that I’ve had since the mornings when I would walk into her nursery and see her head poking over the crib bumper.

We took the train to Bern and went to lunch. She was thrilled to be able to get wurst salad, something she had developed a love for when she was studying in Munich in Germany. I felt so grateful to all the gods that she was in touching distance. I could look at her, laugh with her, share ideas without long distance rates or reading the words on a screen.

We marched together. It wasn’t the first time. As a small child she had gone to Equal Rights Amendment rallies, Take Back the Night marches. We had stood shoulder to shoulder at pro-choice demonstrations when she was in her teens.

Now that our worse expectations about the war have been met overmet, she is in the States and I spend my time in Argelès and Geneva. We are back to sharing with long-distance rates and words on the screen. Although I am sad at how it is, I know she needs her own nest and needs a job to pay for it and if she can’t find it in Europe she must go where the work is. I am so grateful that on that day in Bern at the restaurant as we shared a wurst salad, that I was so aware of how lucky I was to have her in front of me face-to-face. May I never take that’s-my-kid for granted.