I have returned to Washington D.C. The city is verdant, and the velvety magnolia buds are pursed like a lady’s lips as she applies her lipstick. I know it’s mostly wishful thinking from someone who has suffered the white blight of a too-long winter, but I can almost feel them preparing to burst into flower. Through the course of the weekend I hear snippets of countless conversations, and it's the same refrain threaded through most of the eavesdropping — the tidal basin, home to Washington’s famous cherry trees and the Cherry Tree Blossom Festival, will be awash with the silky blush of petals by the end of the month. Everyone awaits the transformation.
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| Suci at the Inauguration, 2009 |
Two years ago I was here to celebrate a Presidential Inauguration with my diminutive host daughter Suci, and found myself perpetually afraid of losing her within the massive crowds that descended on the city through the course of that bitterly cold week. I learned then what it feels like to be made vulnerable by the independence of a child, as the sight of her white hijab ebbed and flowed between the people who jostled their way between us.
This time is different . . . and the same. At seven, Miss S is also small enough to slip in-between people and be absorbed into a crowd, but it is a sleepy spring Washington weekend and the city is host to few visitors. My view of her remains blissfully uninhibited as she walks ahead of me down Constitution Ave in her black boots and jeans, my fuchsia scarf wrapped around her neck, fluttering in the breeze that is created by her wake.
As with Suci before her, it is in Washington that I become fully aware that Miss S. too, moves in an independent orbit now . . . even if her independence at this point is primarily exercised in matters of haute couture.
The first intimations of this new-found independence came before we even left, when she spent six days packing for a three day trip, making sure that every outfit option met the following criteria:
a) stylish,
b) complementary in pattern and color,
c) interchangeable,
d) comfortable
. . . in that order. Given I have worked with college students who could not even design and execute an effective evaluation, I am pretty impressed by her ability to both articulate and use a set of criteria in decision making. That being said, I have to admit I laughed both about how she weighed the criteria, and how seriously she went to task with her packing, given that I gave myself an hour to pack and actually took fifteen minutes . . . being mostly concerned that I had enough clean underwear.
Both my amazement and amusement are tempered as it becomes apparent through the course of the trip that her attention toward style is threaded throughout every stage of the day. Waking invokes a thoughtful review of jewelry options. After breakfast, conversation on the day’s agenda detours into a conversation on just why, exactly, she should have to wear a winter coat instead of her fleece sport-jacket when we leave Aunt Melissa and Uncle Luke’s house. I find myself exhausting a number of forms of reasoning available to me within classical argumentation . . .
- “Because it’s only 50 degrees!” (Argument by Fact, relying on an Enthymeme)
- “Because when Mom was a kid, she would get sick if she didn’t have a coat on in early spring!” (Argument by Analogy)
- “Because if you get sick we won’t be able to do anything.” (Argument by Consequence)
- “Because it’s easier to take off layers than to put layers you don’t have on.” (Argument by Benefits)
- “Because I said so, and if you continue to complain you will sit at Auntie Melissa’s house and miss out on all the fun.” (Argument by Authority)
In the end, the only grounds I give her that hold any weight is the last one. At the utterance of this final ultimatum she silently puts her coat on, checks to make sure her earrings are still dangling, and walks out the door.
“She’s just like you!” Melissa said teasingly, and we all chuckle, knowing how impressively ignorant I have always been regarding personal fashion.
Once on the town, the moist, balmy spring weather, a delight for the rest of us winter burned people, is nothing but a cause for discontent for Miss S.
“My hair is frizzy!” she cries.
“The curl in your hair is activated in the humidity, honey,” I try to explain. “See how my hair and Auntie Colleen's hair has become curled because of the weather?”
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| Miss S., taken at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, two days earlier. |
She rolls her eyes, gives a slight shake of the head, and puts my fuchsia scarf over her hair to cover the problematic curls. For a moment, the drape resembles that of Suci’s headscarf. I have the uncanny impression that time has folded back upon itself — I am walking along Constitution Avenue in D.C. It is simultaneously 2009 and 2011, and ahead of me walks a daughter who is just out of reach, being tossed ahead on the energy of those she moves through, propelled onward, away from me, moving in her own independent orbit.
The sense of vulnerability I once and again feel steals my breath away.
Part Two
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