Letting Go More

My daughter Kathryn left the nest today. Suitcase and cell phone in hand, she boarded an airplane with her mother to begin attending school in San Francisco.
Kathryn is an extraordinary young woman in her resilience, her compassion, and ability to maneuver the hurdles of being a 21 year old on planet earth. I love watching her at this age as she increasingly stands on her own to embrace and confront the world. Her passions, for that matter anyone’s passions, are life-giving. She has a moral center that is solid. She will be a giver.
At precisely the same age Kate is now, I too left the nest to live and school in the Bay Area. With my 1965 VW Beetle packed to the gills I waved goodbye to my parents who stood waving from the porch on Hawkhurst Drive. My father cried. His parting gift was a six pack of 16oz. Colt 45’s, which I proceeded to drink entirely on the drive north. He told me after that he was afraid he’d never see me again, which I apparently was intent on by consuming the malt liquor.
Over the course of the next few months, I experienced a wide range of misery and enlightenment culminating in the decision that film making was a career I would be suited for. Within six months, I had returned to attend film school in Los Angeles.

Berkeley, 1973