A “Shoes Off” Household

Small birds that we saw on our beach walk. My bird identification app said that they might be Snowy Plovers, which are typically uncommon. They scurried around, pulling food from the sand. A delightful, unexpected sighting. We watched their antics for a few lovely minutes.

I got to see my daughter’s new apartment this week; she will be starting her third year of college at UCLA. She flew home for a quick visit, and then I drove her back to Los Angeles a few days later to help her settle in. When she first unlocked the door of her new place and ushered me in, she said, very politely,  “Mom, we are a “shoes off” household.”

“Oh!” I said. “Of course!”

It made me happy, that she was able to tell me their rule. But it also made me a little sad, that she is in a household that doesn’t include me anymore. I also have a “shoes off” household in theory, but sometimes I tiptoe through the house with my shoes on, if I have forgotten something and am just going to grab one thing “real quick.” Like my tea. My water. A mask. Actually, I almost always forget something in the morning, so I wear my shoes in the house a lot. Maybe I do not have a “shoes off” household as much as I’d like to think, and my daughter realizes that. In her household, it seems like they will actually honor their rule. A good thing.

It’s not a terrible drive, the one from our home to Los Angeles. Still, though, there were moments when I found myself wishing the whole thing away, wanting to be there already. I mentally counted down the miles as the road signs flew by: 300, 200, 100 miles to Los Angeles. And then the Grapevine, with its dire warning notices telling you to “turn off air conditioners to prevent overheating!” A tricky section of road, that one, with a significant elevation gain (and loss), a lot of slow moving trucks on one side, and a lot of speedsters zooming by on the other. It’s the part of the trip where you start to remember what LA traffic is like, and you thank God that your parents had the good sense to move your family up to Northern California from there when you were just a wee thing.

But sometimes on the drive, for a few breaths, I tried to be present. To just be. To take in the flourishing almond orchards, and the dying almond orchards, and the signs urging us to “Recall Newsom!” and the signs asking if “Growing Food Is Wasting Water?”  There was the California Aqueduct,  smelly cattle lots, hundreds of patient semi-trucks traveling along with us, making their tiresome journey from north to south. I tried to remember that it was a gift to be in the car with my daughter,  who I only see a few times a year now. That these moments were fleeting, precious. There will be days ahead when I will look back on the car ride time and wish that we could do it all over again, that I could magically morph back to that drive, to the car, to that hot summer day, where it was just the two of us, listening to music, walking to the bathroom together at rest stops, nowhere else we needed to be, nothing else we needed to do.

Her roommates are stellar. They are a household now. I am grateful that she has good friends. Isn’t it funny, though, how life works? These women are all folks that she met her freshman year in the dorms. So random, the dorm room assignments. And how different like would be now had she been placed on a different floor. She would certainly have different roommates. Would live in a different place. Nothing would be the same.

It was a quick trip, but it was lovely. We walked on the beach, visited Venice, drank designer lemonade, shared a crème brulee Boba drink with Oreo cookie bites, and had the best fried chicken ever. That was Thursday. Then we woke up at 4:15 am Friday morning so that she could make it to work by 5:00 am. I watched her walk inside, and then started the long drive home, counting the miles down again, this time by myself. She is in a good place now. But it’s still not easy letting her go.