David Whyte, author of The Heart Aroused and Crossing the Unknown Sea, was scheduled to speak at the San Francisco Unitarian Universalist Church so I took a trip north and dragged my daughter Katie along for the ride.
Me: “Don’t schedule anything for Friday night.”
Katie: (immediately suspicious) “Why?”
Me: “My friends Pat and Alfredo are in town …”
Katie: (guttural noises begin to emanate for somewhere deep inside her teenage chest)
Me: “… and they invited us to dinner.”
Katie: (guttural noises begin to take the shape of words) “B… but, but, I …”
Me: “What?”
Katie: (plaintive look) “… dinner? But …”
Me: “What’s wrong?”
Katie: “It’s just that…”
Me: “Oh, I get it. Being with adults is just painful.”
Katie: “Well, yeah!”
I don’t know any good way of delivering this news other than simply and directly: On June 30, 2007, Rebecca and I separated. Rebecca is staying at a friend’s condo across town and I remain at the Woodland Estate for the time being. The kids continue to reside with me at the Woodland Estate except for every other weekend when they are with Rebecca.
At this point I don’t feel it appropriate to either relate the circumstances leading up to the separation here or to speculate on what comes next. If you have additional questions drop me a line.
It’s tough without the Boy calling every week asking where his allowance is. As we grind toward the end of the school year — always an excruciating experience at the Holliman household — we can’t help but miss the Boy. Each day I check the Golden Bear’s log (advice: ignore the gold stars as they do not seem to be updated) much like I found myself looking at the CMA webcam when he was on campus. The last few days they’ve been reporting high winds and heavy seas. I just hope the Boy isn’t suffering too much from sea sickness.
It looks as though they’re keeping the students busy — idle hands and all — though why they’ve resorted to sawing up plastic buckets (a few frames down the page) is a mystery. If your looking for a dose of mayhem, though, they’re well equipped with my son.
The Boy completed his first year at Cal Maritime (CMA) last month. KT and I drove up to pick him up and drive him home for a quick dental appointment before embarking on his cruise. The Golden Bear–CMA’s training vessel–departed Sunday so the boy is off! Next stop: Kobe, Japan.
CMA does a good job of documenting the voyages of the Golden Bear with frequent updates on their website, so I checked and to my delight yesterday’s “Captain’s Log” contains pictures of the some of the engineering students including the Boy! Check him out here–he’s the handsome red head.
Somehow I managed to talk the girls into making the trip to Independence last weekend for my birthday. From our home, it is at least a four hour drive – five if you’re facing Friday evening traffic along with everyone else trying to escape the LA basin. My ambitions for the weekend were relatively modest – to stay at the Winnedumah Hotel, visit the Manzanar National Historic Site and the Eastern California Museum, wander north to Bishop for some French bread from Erick Schat’s Bakkerÿ. And to relax. More details and pictures soon.
The Boy is back for the holidays. It has taken a bit of adjustment to being the parent of a (nearly) adult offspring. And the Boy has proven remarkably social — more social than I remember him. The big adjustment occurred at Thanksgiving. They had the entire week off so my son planned to drive down with his roommate — and in the process invited his roommate to stay for the week. They were going to be driving late and sleepy and, as a good mother should be, Rebecca was concerned for their safety. That’s when I found out that they weren’t going to be late — they were going to be early. As in early Saturday morning. It turns out that they gave a ride to another fellow student from Temecula who is on the rugby team. Cal Maritime has a rugby team? Who knew? As it turns out, Stanford didn’t seem to know and they walked away losing to the Keelhaulers! Unfortunately the game didn’t end until 9:00pm so the boys missed most of the traffic and rolled into our house at 4:30am.
So we had an extra guest Friday night (or, more precisely, Saturday morning) — this was just a hint of things to come. One extra body? No problem — as long as he doesn’t mind sleeping on the couch or the floor. I’d forgotten how these boys could sleep — and sleep they did — until around 12:30pm. I cooked ‘em a late breakfast and third boy’s parents appeared as they were eating. Shortly thereafter, my son began working the phones letting his friends know that he was back in town. By 5:00pm he was off with his friends only to return around 7:00 pm for the promised batch of beef stroganoff. I’d planned on feeding the Boy and his room mate, but by the time I began serving I had a dozen kids hanging around waiting for the Boy so they could go and tear up the town. Luckily I made a large batch and many of the boys had eaten so I wound up feeding only six or seven of them.
(Let me not leave you with the impression that the Boy’s crew consisted entirely of males. A couple of females also showed up — a fellow Keelhauler from Long Beach and her friend. They had the good sense, though, to get the hell out before they drowned in all of the testosterone.)
After dinner, I sat down to watch a movie and the boys started to make their plans. After a short time I began to nod off and decided to retreat to the bedroom. There were boys still coming and going, but I was half asleep so I didn’t pay ‘em much mind — until about 3:30am when I woke up to the sounds of the party still raging. Raging party? I thought they were going out on the town? Hmmmm. Even more confusing to a sleeping father was that it almost sounded like it was coming from the outside. I got up to check and there were a half dozen — maybe seven or eight — boys in my family room playing the new Nintendo Wii. None of them my son. Unexplained was the noise from outside, though, so I looked out the back slider and I — yes even I — was surprised at what I saw. My son had taken the TV from his bedroom and placed it outside on the BBQ platform. Beside it was a lamp from his room with hand towels draped over it (don’t ask why the hand towels, I don’t know). Arrayed in front of the TV were another seven or eight boys playing on a Sony Play Station. And ten feet away was another group of 3 or 4 boys in the corner near the firepit doing what all men love to do — standing around, looking into the fire and bullshitting.
My son was not among any of these groups, though. “I haven’t seen Miles for a while…” was the common reply. I can imagine many parents not reacting well to any of this, but I’d known many of these kids for a long time — some since middle school — so I was able to console myself that they’re good kids. One boy even came up (at 3:30 am, remember) and introduced himself, “Hi Mr. Holliman.”
(Yes, “Mr. Holliman!”) “I’m (I don’t remember his name — I was half asleep) … I went to school with Miles at McPherson. But I went to high school in Fullerton ….” The Boy had called in people he hadn’t seen since middle school!?!
There was not much for me to do. The boys weren’t making too much noise — just laughing and joking — so I went back to bed. In the meantime, the party continued until just after 5:00 am when I heard the sound of the front door and a marked decline in volume. The fact that the cops hadn’t been called surprised me a bit. A few weeks ago a neighbor had a party — complete with a live band that didn’t stop playing until the cops showed up a second time. At the sound of the front door closing, I gave up trying to sleep and went out to find my son — Mr. Responsible — cleaning up the place and putting blankets on the leftovers (the five or six of his friends sleeping both in his room and in the family room floor).
Later, I asked the boy what the idea was, inviting twenty people over for an all-night party. The Boy claimed that he didn’t expect all those people to show up. He grinned, put on his best angelic face, and explained “I guess word just got out that I was back in town.”
Last week we trekked to Northern California to drop the Boy off at the California Maritime Academy (CMA). Clearly dropping LW off at college is a milestone event, so both Rebecca and I took the necessary time off — and a bit more. We drove up the night before (both of us had to work that day) and arrived late in Vallejo. The next morning LW was scheduled to move into the dorms at 9:00 am and, being a bit anxious with nothing else to do, we arrived a little early. Though CMA is a member of the Cal State system, it is a bit different in that it has a somewhat military academy feel to it, though I get the sense that they do not take this to the extremes that the traditional service academies do. One of the pluses of this is that they had the whole dorm check-in process very well organized. A student met us at the bottom of the hill below the lower-classman dorm, checked our name against his list, and directed up the hill at our appointed time. Arriving at the dorm we were met by a swarm of students who, while LW went to check in, carried his “stuff” up to his room. Once the van was unloaded — which with the help of the students took all of five minutes — I parked the van and met LW and Rebecca in his room to find Rebecca helping to unpack his belongings. In no time at all, she’d climbed up onto his bunk and was making his bed.
LW bore his Rebecca’s mothering. For the most part. Then he was off to his swimming test and the formal orientation program that began around noon. Thus began a weekend that included a short vacation at the Mountain Home Inn in Marin County and numerous trips back to CMA to drop off last minute supplies and to take the Boy out to dinner. In the process we visited the Muir Woods National Monument, Muir Beach, and, of course, Henry Hunan’s in San Francisco.
Photos of CMA are here, and of Muir Woods and Marin County here.
Like last year, this year Katie attended Corky Carroll’s surf Camp. Last year I took a week off and took her while Rebecca and LW were wandering around Germany and France. I managed to persuade Rebecca to do her motherly duty and take Katie — and her friend Kelly — this year. By all reports the girls had a fine time — and ended up the week with a soft surfer’s tan.
More photos here.
The Boy graduated from El Modena High School yesterday with Rebecca, Katie, his Fox grandparents, Christine and I looking on. Though held outside on a warm early summer day, there was a steady breeze and the organizers planned an efficient event that was thankfully short on “looking forward - looking back” speeches by students. Pictures to follow.
Bad Behavior has blocked 38 access attempts in the last 7 days.
