IT’S ALL GREEK TO ME
In light of the fact we have forty-eight hours to lift-off I thought maybe I should explain why so many of these details are more confounding to me than to other moms.
I was sitting with a group of friends yesterday, a few of us Freshman Moms. They were remembering stories about when they moved in to their dorms, the endless roommate controversies, lack of storage, late nights and all the details of college life. I sat silently, something I rarely do as they all have frames of reference, something I do not as I did not attend college.
In fact the only time I have been on campuses was when I took Taylor on her tours and bizarrely when I have lectured at them. Something that despite the fact I never attended one my screenwriting career has allowed me to do.
The reason I write about this today is I was thinking last night about all these discussions of moving kids in and how long we stay and my friend Becca’s comment the other day about how she went in to BU alone. The norm both in fiction and in life, seems to be the overstuffed car rumbling up to the dorm, the family and all the gear falling out with the reluctant/excited freshman both pretending they don’t know this group and crying at the thought of saying good-bye to them. But the family is always there.
During an interview for my documentary LUCKY DUCKS a woman broke into tears while recounting her own experience of being sent off to college alone only to be faced with what seemed like every other freshman accompanied by at least one family member.
I suppose the key question is why didn’t I go to college? I was clearly bright enough though I was one of those students who went through school having every report card end with “If Tracey would apply herself and use her full potential she could do very well.”
The fact is Tracey did as little as humanly possible to eke by. I didn’t then nor do I now like people telling me what to do, what to read etc. So I really didn’t like school. I didn’t like to study things I didn’t find interesting and more importantly I was not popular. I grew up way ahead of myself and was never really a part of any group nor did I ever feel like I fit in or belonged with people my own age. Case in point, my boyfriend all though high school was ten years older than I was. The idea of perpetuating this torture for another four years was not appealing.
And then one throws into that soup the fact I knew from a very early age that all I wanted to do in life was be an actress. And that I did apply myself to in a big way. I did all the school plays and community theatre constantly. I studied privately with Dame Judith Anderson (Google her!) and I spent two summers studying with the Royal Shakespeare Company. When it came to my acting I wasn’t messing around.
So somewhere between my sophomore and senior year I decided I would not apply to nor attend a college or university. I don’t know when I made this decision since during my sophomore year I remember sitting in the library going through the college books and focusing on Bennington, Sarah Lawrence and Carnegie Mellon – all schools with superior drama programs, two without structure. The funny thing about Bennington is my husband went there and would have been a senior when I arrived. We often say “What if?” And he always tells me I should have gone.
But I put that all away and instead applied and got into The American Conservatory Theater’s summer intensive program. At that time ACT was one of the best repertory companies in the country, run by a dynamo named Bill Ball. You had to audition to get in and in the acting world it was a big deal.
The program started two weeks after high school ended. My mother did go to San Francisco with me to find an apartment. But when it came time to move up there, well, she wouldn’t take me because she didn’t want to have to drive home alone. She didn’t like long drives and she might be sad.
San Francisco is a five hour drive from Santa Barbara. I was eighteen and it would have been nice to pile in the car with her and spend the weekend getting my place set up and hang out. My grandmother, who pretty much took care of the real details of those parts of my life was occupied as my grandfather was quite sick at the time.
So my friend, and now I realize what a good friend he was, Donald Lowthe took me up there in his Porsche – thus I couldn’t have had much stuff as it all fit in the back.
We were there by three, he helped me get my suitcases into the apartment and he returned back to Santa Barbara that day. Driving home alone was not a problem for Donald.
And then there I was in a studio apartment overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge all alone until school started in two days.
I remember sitting and staring at the Bridge thinking “OK, so now what?” I was used to being alone, trust me – but this was grown up alone and there were no kids my own age to trade stories or get drunk with. It was me and my stuff in a lovely apartment that would the first of many posh apartments my grandmother would pay for and I would live in by myself for the next thirteen years.
But I survived and unlike the woman I interviewed I don’t remember it being the worst experience of my life. Though it clearly wasn’t the best and I do remember being very lonely.
Though using the technique I’ve spent my life mastering I shopped to ease the pain. I remember gong off to Cost Plus, and buying what I needed and setting my up little place. I remember wandering around Union Street and buying candles and soaps and eating burgers alone at Perry’s.
We obviously had no cell phones then and since the landline wasn’t installed I had to use the phone in the laundry room to call home. My mother didn’t seem too concerned but let’s face it, if she had been concerned she would have been there.
I’m not saying my mother didn’t love me, or care, though it was on her terms and since she has a lot of Big Edie in her, her feeling was if you’re leaving me, I’m not helping you do it. At least that is what I think it was. I really don’t know. It was too long ago and I just accepted things at face value. I don’t think I would have ever said I want you to take me I don’t want to be alone. I just found a way to get there myself. Necessity often times being the mother of survival.
I only stayed three months; looking back I should have stayed two years. Looking back someone should have taken me by the shoulders and said you are eighteen and you have your life to act – go get a proper education.
I think if you were to ask my mother she would say I was stubborn and there was no point in arguing with me once I had made up my mind.
But the day ACT ended, Donald drove back up as my mother did not want to drive up there alone, and he picked me up and drove me home.
When I got back Blake was sitting alone the living room. Yes, that Blake – I knew something was up as he would not have been there just to welcome me. He was there to tell me my grandfather had died that morning. My mother had taken off to be with my grandmother and she called Blake to be the deliverer of the news as he was the closest thing to family I had.
So the week I should have been starting college, we buried my grandfather, a man who had put himself though both college and law school and had put away money for my entire college education. He clearly wanted me to have one.
Shortly after my grandfather’s death my mother left for Europe and I decided to move to LA to start my acting career. So the month I should have been deep in freshman activities my grandmother and I found another swank little apartment and we set about decorating it and moving me into it and she did all those things a mother normally does.
Now that I’m older I understand how lonely grandma was in her later years and oftentimes feel guilty for being so involved in my own world that I didn’t spend enough time with her.
But when I think about the years I should have been in school and several beyond, the years she supported me and helped me move into other apartments and paid to furnish them and we ate many meals together and went to the movies and she did so many of things I needed, I realize it gave her great pleasure. She got to fulfill her maternal instincts and ease her loneliness and I needed someone to do it.
Had my grandfather lived and witnessed my life those first six years of my twenties (NO DRUGS, Grandpa, I promise…lots of boys, but no drugs) he would have seen very little structure and very few accomplishments. He would have demanded I get a job or go to school and it would have been the best thing for me. He would have put his foot down and turned off the dollar faucet leaving me with few options.
But the women in my family, for their own unique reasons, many I think having to do with control, never felt the need to step in and say anything.
By not going to college and ultimately finding my way and becoming successful in a difficult field I have oftentimes taken the position that college may not be for everyone.
And despite the fact I’m sad Tay won’t be around on a daily basis I am happy that she is going off to be with her peers in the greatest college city in the world and even though I would rather not come home alone on Tuesday, her empty suitcases and my aching heart in tow, that’s what moms do and sometimes grandmas too. They do the tough stuff, they put together the desks and line the drawers and they take on a hunk of hurt so you can grow. I didn’t get that – but Taylor will.
Though my grandfather didn’t stay around long enough to point me in the right direction he did give me advice during the last conversation I had with him, which I remember it like it was yesterday. I was sitting in that apartment overlooking The Golden Gate Bridge that his decades of work and study and diligence was paying for. He was dying and I think we both knew it, in that way you just know things. He told me, “I love you babe and I have made it possible that you don’t have to worry about money, but please, please,” and he started to cry “do something with your life, make it count.”
He knew he wouldn’t be around to help guide me, and he knew the others might not do such a great job, so he was doing it in our last conversation.
And the comforting thing is despite the fact I wasn’t a freshman nor do I have a degree, I still managed to pull it off. The work I didn’t put in my early twenties I have more than made up for in my thirties, forties and now fifties.
I made my own money and ended up supporting myself and that would have meant everything to him. Every time I get a movie made or sign a book deal I know he is somewhere smiling.
And on Tuesday when I leave his great-grandchild off to start her freshman year that my hard work is paying for he will be smiling down on both of us.
Posted in Freshman Mom
