The TCK Who Spread Her Wings, and Passed Them to her Daughter.

 

This morning, I took my youngest daughter, Melanie (Mel, Mel-Mel, Mel Bell) age 20, to the airport.  She is flying to Hawaii to start a new life.  She has a house with three roommates, and will work as a dental assistant until January.  At that point she will start classes at a community college, and eventually transfer to the University of Hawaii.  I’m so excited for her, but a little bit sad (perturbed?  annoyed?) because, believe me, there have been plenty of naysayers.  Are you going to let her do that?  Aren’t you worried about her?  It’s so dangerous!  It's so far away!  That’s not right!  That’s outrageous!  What a terrible mom you are!  (Okay, no one actually said that last one, but that is the vibe I’m getting).  What the heck?  It’s not Timbuktu for pete’s sake, (which is really a place!) and it’s actually (news flash) a part of the United States.  People do live there.  A lot of them. (Okay, snarky rant is over).

 

It must be that TCK thing – once again I am the outlier, hitting my head against the social norms of my birth country, experiencing cultural homelessness, and having that pesky three-dimensional view of the world.  Is it so bad that I want my kid to experience another culture?  At least she has the added benefit of looking like a native Hawaiian (having been born in Kazakhstan).  She visited last summer with her boyfriend, and many people thought she was kanaka.  It surprised her at first, but then became a comfort.  It totally makes sense for her to long for inclusiveness, to not be the odd one out.  Maybe she inherited some of my TCK DNA. 

 When I was 18 and graduated from high school in Singapore, my mom put me on a plane, headed to London, to go to summer school and nanny for a family there.  As we waited at the gate (the old days before TSA) mom noticed that there was a group of athletic looking guys milling around.  She found out somehow that they were the Dutch National Soccer team (I was flying KLM) heading home to Holland after a tournament (Hup Hup!) She was on full mom alert, thinking about how those handsome sporty fellows were going to be interested in me and all that. Turns out none of them spoke English, and there was no romantic escapade where I ran off to live the WAG* life with a dreamy Dutch footballer.  <sigh>

After mom left me, there came an announcement that the flight would be delayed until the next morning, and we would all be given hotel rooms for the night.  I could have called mom, but, hey, why not have a night at the fancy Hyatt Regency?  When I got settled for the night, I tried to call mom to tell her my whereabouts, but there was no answer.  Again and again for a couple of hours, I called, with no response. 

I finally decided to call a family friend (actually the husband of the woman I was going to be staying with in London) to go over and see if mom was all right.  We lived in a 5-story townhouse, and, after no response to the doorbell, he proceeded to throw pebbles at the window.  Mom was in the den with the TV turned up, and was sort of surprised to see him there.  Phone calls were made to London, and all was well.  I was back at the airport via bus early the next day.  Off we (finally) went.

The long-haul flight took us to Bangkok, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and finally to Amsterdam. I remember peering out my plane window marveling at all these exotic places, and wishing I could hop off to explore, but I stayed put.  (They wouldn’t let us get off anyway).

We arrived in Amsterdam at 1 in the morning.  No flights until the next day.  I decided to follow the crowd from the flight, asking questions of my fellow travelers, and found that we were to be taken to a hotel for the rest of the night. Again, I had a (not so fancy this time) hotel room where I half-slept and half kept one eye on the clock, afraid I would miss the wake up call.

Back to the airport we went, and I, weary and travel-worn, finally arrived in London. All this was waaay before cell phones and the internet were even a twinkle in someone's eye.  We had to make <gasp> long-distance calls, or maybe send a telex (google it, kids!) I may as well have been in a covered wagon; a very fast, air conditioned one. 

Stone Age Telex Machines

After a couple of jet-lagged days, I decided to figure out the route to my school (Richmond College).  My friend Judith drove me to the underground/bus station, said “Bye!” and drove off.  No hand holding was done.  I just marched in, bought a bus pass, and studied the map.  After a fairly long and involved bus/tube ride, I had to walk a ways up a steep hill to the campus.  It was a Harry Potter-ish building, ornate and stately, and I marched in, registered for my class, and checked out the lay of the land.  I was in ENGLAND!  I couldn’t believe it. There was even a PUB across the street.  

Richmond College

My motto ever since then has been “Worrying about The Thing is far worse than the Actual Thing”.  I had worried about the trip and the adjustment for weeks beforehand.  As the journey, with all its warts, was under way, I realized that this was easy!  I had made it.  What was the worst thing that could have happened?  Other than being bumped to a hotel, twice.  The eye candy in the form of European soccer players didn’t hurt either. 

Before long I was a pro at riding the double decker bus through London, past Kew Gardens, to Richmond.  The ticket-seller and I became friends. I took a Sociology class from an American professor, with two other classmates, one being a member of the Bahraini royal family.  One day when I was only one to show up, the professor told me that it was common for assassins to throw bombs into the classroom of a target, sometimes royalty.  Thanks; I'm  never coming back (but I did).  

The prince kept to himself, driving past me in the rain, in his tricked-out I-Roc Camaro, which was not at all out of place on the streets of London. (Sarcasm).  I stood at the lowly bus stop as he hit a puddle and water sprayed all over me. He never said a word, or even looked in my direction.  Interesting guy.   

In the afternoons, I would fetch the two children, Rupert and Clare, at their schools, walk them home and make lunch.  We went to the neighborhood park, where I taught them to make daisy chains.  They were sweet kids, and I really enjoyed taking care of them.  The whole summer, before college, was an eye-opening, exhilarating and insightful experience.  I may or may not have met a dishy British guy named Patrick who swept me off my feet. Turned out the only good thing about him was his accent, so lesson learned!

I suppose when Melanie broached the idea of moving to Hawaii I was, at first a little skeptical.  But as we spoke, I remembered my 18-year-old self, having had the opportunity to travel literally half-way across the globe, alone, and learn to be an adult and do The Thing. Most non-TCK people would be skeptical or shocked that I would send my kid off across an ocean.  But to me, it was something that Mel needed to do.  She needed to experience The Thing herself, perhaps run into roadblocks and one-way streets, and learn how to navigate. Will it be hard?  Will we get teary phone calls?  Sure.  But allowing her to spread those wings is the most important gift that I can give her, just like the gift my parents gave me.  Those wings I had were more valuable than gold.  I think they will look just perfect on my daughter.

Aloha, Melanie!

 

*Wives and Girlfriends