I’m happy to present another VOICES post! In the Blink of an Eye by Lisa Trank.

Lisa and I met at a Highlights Foundation Workshop last year. Lisa writes poetry and young adult fiction. Her powerful words below capture the emotions a mother must face when her firstborn leaves for college. In the Blink of an Eye brought tears to mine.

Introducing Lisa Trank! 

I began writing after many years of being a performing artist – an actress and singer – and am happy to be bringing those years of crafting characters and musical storytelling into my writing life. I’m a former recipient of a Rocky Mountain Women’s Institute Fellowship in poetry and have spent much of my writing career focusing on the stories I grew up with as the daughter of naturalized citizens, and as the first generation to be born in this country. Currently, I’m completing my first young adult novel, entitled Tangled Chimes, a multi-generational, slightly fantastical, coming-of-age story. When I’m not writing, I sing withResonance Women’s Chorus of Boulder County, do as much yoga as I can. I’m the proud mother of three wonderful teen-age daughters, am married to my best friend, and live in Longmont, Colorado, with a constant view of the Rocky Mountains.

In the Blink of an Eye

As a self-described “writer. mother,” I’ve been chronicling my parenting life of three daughters, including twins, for 18 years, from breastfeeding to weaning, birthday parties, family pets, and homemade Halloween costumes. Being a writer has enabled me to navigate the often tsunami-like parenting waters with a certain sense of perspective and hopefully, humor. Writing about motherhood has been a lifeline and a creative buoy, keeping me afloat and creating community. But more than anything, writing about mothering has allowed me to make more solid a life that happens in the blink of an eye. It all feels like flash fiction, whole lifetimes condensed into moments we’re scrambling to remember, or in my case, write down with some semblance of integrity to the richness our life contains.

This latest chapter of my parenting life is one that we planned for, worked hard to make happen, celebrated when it came to pass, but in the end, it was nothing like what I thought it would be. Like writing. Like life.

Prologue: When I left California to attend college in Illinois, I refused to allow my parents to accompany me. The suffering through three weeks across the country to deliver my second oldest brother to Yale was still seared in my memory banks. A trip that included a chain-smoking oldest brother, a contraband filled 12-string guitar on the top of the car, and best of all – me, a pouty, sour-faced 16 year old furious that I’d been wrenched from the arms of my boyfriend. As the youngest and only girl of well-intentioned, yet suffocating parents, I wasn’t willing to transport what was sure to be a tense and tear-jerking milestone into my new found freedom. My oldest brother drove my parents and me to LAX. A one-way boarding pass to Chicago and at least seven bags of luggage containing who knows what. We lingered as long as we could at the gate – this is the long-gone era before terrorist threats and security lines – until it was time for me to board the plane. I hugged my parents and brother good-bye and started walking down the gateway. I turned back to see my parents’ faces buried in my much taller brother’s shoulder, their bodies quaking. After that one look back, I walked straight onto that plane and into a story of my own making.

Fast forward to August 2018. Our oldest has flown the coop to attend Reed College in Portland, Oregon. A cool, demanding school for our cool, demanding girl. She flew out ahead of us for a pre-orientation community service project and to move in early into the dorms. And despite, or because of my own leaving for college experience, we decided to make the trek from Colorado to send her on her way.

Chapter One: She’s Leaving Home, Bye-Bye. A one-way ticket to Portland, which took me three tries to purchase because I kept crying and clicking out of the website. Only because ticket prices threatened to jump way up did I finally buy the damn thing. The morning of her departure, my husband and I drove her to the airport at 5 AM, and despite a few gasps after leaving her at security, we were comforted by the fact that we’d see her in two days.

Chapter Two: The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming! It was early the next morning. The animal sitter was set, and I’d cleaned the house in my usual end of “Fiddler on the Roof” fashion – you know the part when the Cossacks are about to arrive and ransack all the Jewish households. Tevye is haranguing Golde that they need to leave and she’s sweeping the front stoop, determined to clean her house, no matter what is about to happen.

The car was filled to the brim oldest daughter’s too heavy to ship Doc Marten shoe collection (hello, Portland!), an unwieldy reading pillow, plus other odds and ends she’d been texting me about since she’d landed. Oh, and Jeffrey the Spider plant, a gift from a dear friend that we “had to bring,” who occupied the space on the dashboard shelf, soaking up the sun. There was barely enough room to look out the back window, but being my normal optimistic self, I reminded her sisters that the ride back from Portland was going to be so much more comfortable, which was met with eye rolling as we began our 19-hour journey.

Chapter Three: On The Road Again. I’ve always loved road trips. Maybe it’s my California roots showing, but something about a car and music and a Rand McNally map makes insanely happy. And I really love road trips with my family. Listening to music, talking, laughing, and moving across different landscapes has a calming impact on me and pulls us together in wonderful ways. Road trips make me feel brave and curious, as well as patient. All trait one needs to be a parent, and a writer.

Wyoming was barren, windy, and dry. Utah? Thankfully, a short jump to Idaho, which delighted with the Snake River. We arrived in Boise, Idaho and laughed our way through a not so great motel and dinner choice of Mickey D’s. Bright and early the next morning we crossed over into Oregon giddy with the anticipation of arriving in Portland and seeing our girl.

Chapter Four: Revise, Revise, Revise. Life, like writing, is about facing impediments. After arriving, we found out we’d not be able to spend as much time with our daughter as we thought, as her community service program would flow into the official move-in day. Disappointment turned into flexibility, and we set out to discover the new place our daughter and their sister would now be calling home. A good moment for our family.

Some thrift shopping therapy and artisan donut eating later, we met up with our girl at her dorm. She seemed authentically happy to see us, and we delivered Jeffrey, who was a little battered from the drive, helped her unpack things, loft her bed and successfully didn’t kill each other in the process. To celebrate we ate out at a classic Portland foodie restaurant, followed by ice cream. My husband and I beamed as we took in our family and how much we all love one another. A really good chapter in our family’s little book.

Chapter Five: Misery. I woke up to find out my bank card had been compromised, causing an uptick in my money anxiety. Trying to put that aside and enjoy the day, my husband and I took part in a canyon tour on campus and then met our daughter with more of her belongings at her dorm. She was rushed and impatient to return to her activities, and it turned out to be the only time we’d see her that day. To pass the time, I took her sisters to a high-end mall so they could take advantage of Oregon’s no sales tax. Bad idea. In the midst of lots of really rich people buying things they don’t really need, always a challenging situation for me, the reality of what was happening sunk in – we were leaving her here, and we had so little time with her left before EVERYTHING CHANGED. A panic attack launched as I ran down the escalator and plunked down on a bench outside of Nordstrom’s. Shoppers walked a safe distance away from the crying woman, me, as I let myself have what we call an ugly cry. The twins found me and comforted me, telling me to breathe. With their loving care, we made it out of there in one piece.

Chapter Six: The Goodbye Girl. We met our daughter at convocation. Since this is a super cool school, no need for decorum and she was happily dressed in her Dismantle White Feminism t-shirt and torn jeans, and yes, Doc Martens. We sat through an interesting talk, and when she nudged my fingers with her, my heart swelled. After the ceremony, we headed off for one last trip to Target and a stop at the food trucks in downtown Portland. Definitely better than the high-end mall. We were all kind of quiet as we knew what was just around the corner.

Back on campus, we took her things into her room. She felt restless and ready for us to go. We kept it short and sweet. I didn’t cry, nor did she, or her sisters, although I did see my otherwise stoic hubby sniffle tears away. We watched her walk back toward her dorm, and we drove away.

Chapter Seven: Heartbreak Hotel. As we started the drive out of Portland, my husband popped in a CD with songs from our daughters’ childhood. Here She Goes began to play, and my tears flowed, or more accurately, exploded from my eyes and down my face, through Portland to who knows where or when they finally dried up. Maybe Boise. Maybe back in Longmont. Maybe never. On the way to Portland, the four of us were united in our excitement at the adventure, and in our common goal of helping our beloved family member launch. The way back was very different. We were quiet, each in our own space and had 1200 miles to grapple with how life had changed. School and work loomed. Our excitement only perked up again when we finally crossed back into Colorado, then back into our town, at our home and greeted by our silly dogs.

A week later, I keep expecting her to walk in the door and listen for her soft, sweet “hi, Mama,” every day. We text photos of the animals to her, and she’s keeping us up to date. I have to remind myself that she is there and that we are here and that everything is as it should be.

The tether is being stretched to its capacity — my heart on one end, her life, and future on the other. We’ve written our story together and will continue to do so. Now it’s time for her, and her sisters in another two years, to write their own stories. And for me to continue to write mine.