Coping 101: A Mini Course On What To Take To College
KUR, CAROL
COPING 101:A MINI COURSE IN WHAT TO TAKE TO COLLEGE Do we send our kids off to school with too much baggage? Or not enough? CAROL KUR Something terrible or wonderful has happened to us; I can't...
...Whatever must they be thinking of us, I wondered, afraid to consider the answer...
...It was a wonderfully cordial meeting, and we all felt good about it...
...A van...
...And, to my husband, "Just tell us which car is yours and we'll help you unload, sir...
...Just different...
...Get yourself over to Hillel," I said...
...The unvarnished truth is, I thought, that I can't think of a single item here that Susan said she had to have...
...Why am I feeling so defensive about this...
...And we will miss her fiercely...
...For centuries, we lived according to the principle, "fear today, gone tomorrow," and, as a consequence, we learned to travel light...
...She was dreading the goodbyes...
...She positioned the candlesticks prominently on her bookshelf...
...On the floor, carefully confined to her side of the room, were Mary's possessions: a trunk, two small suitcases, and a wood crate filled with records, books, miscellany...
...Somehow, our girls have managed to avoid being super label-conscious—a small victory for something or other...
...She was very nearly finished unpacking...
...Susan, 18, is the second daughter and middle child in our family...
...Jeans, of course...
...It's not as it appears...
...Maleska) and on Rubik's Cube...
...Too un-casual...
...Mary's father, it turned out, couldn't come with them...
...An adjustable reading lamp, an electric typewriter, and finally, a study buddy...
...Not that we would, for an instant, have had it any other way...
...As to the rest of the cargo, more later...
...Why am J suddenly so acutely aware of who I am...
...Susan made one last teary phone call to a high school friend and, finally, we were ready to leave...
...The voices were modulated, well-bred...
...I was delighted...
...It was on Alison's "must" list...
...Alison expressed the difference rather well, I thought, as we strolled the lovely grounds just prior to our departure...
...Gotcha...
...The college sent that little yellow booklet...
...Our 13-year-old daughter Dana helped engineer the packing...
...Why do I care so much...
...Let there be no mistake about where she's coming from, in case anybody couldn't guess...
...Denim skirt...
...Very...
...When I reported this conversation to Susan, she went about making arrangements to borrow a van, and, when it was done, informed her father that she'd taken care of it...
...They both described themselves as "people persons...
...Suit...
...In fact, we needed every square foot of that van...
...She is independent, resourceful, sensitive, unafraid...
...beautiful, and no doubt hand wrought, lavender and light blue afghan folded at the foot...
...We'll certainly be able to get everything into the car...
...Have you looked in my room lately...
...But we were delighted to find that her assignment had netted her a lovely, large, corner room- with two closets and three big windows...
...We said a warm goodbye...
...And I've heard that in other parts of the country, it is known by other equally peculiar names...
...And Alison, in her inimitable way, echoed her version of my unease when she said, "I never saw so many blond haired, skinny people in my life...
...Just sign here, please...
...In my worst fantasy, on the drive to school, I was imagining that the room would be so small that we'd wind up having to take half the stuff home again...
...The gridget became a sharp pain...
...It made much more sense to play the violin than the piano...
...All three girls were, studies in casual elegance...
...Mary had already begun to unpack...
...The mother was not in terrific "I never saw so many blond-haired, skinny people in my life...
...It was (how to say this with some degree of delicacy...
...Violins, after all, are so portable...
...We liked her instantly...
...Then there was an enormous duffle bag that contained towels, bed linens, blankets and a complete wardrobe of outerwear jackets for the fall (no winter clothing yet...
...Not better, not worse...
...But I'm getting ahead of the story...
...Just in case...
...Metal bookshelves, three yellow plastic stacking trays, two milk crates, origins unknown, filled with books and music...
...The splashy Merimekko quilt that had been a graduation gift, to which I was able to match sheets and pillowcases, would not shriek next to this quiet serenity...
...I looked at my daughter, already making order out of the chaos, and then back at Mary and her family...
...Dean of one of the country's most prestigious Divinity schools, he was, at that very moment, hosting a reception for new students...
...And, most important, how will this child of mine fare in what will be, for her, a very new milieu...
...different, very different, from our initial arrival on the Bran-deis campus two years ago...
...I will," Susan answered, rewarding me with one of those long-suffering "Oh Mother" smiles...
...They like the same music...
...Toward the end, she allowed as how we'd better shift the position of the metal bookshelves because Daddy wouldn't be able to see out the back window...
...And then the two handsome young men began to deposit the contents of the blue van...
...She was in a hurry, eager to get back for at least some of the welcome for the new Divinity students...
...It's just that, well, we've had the experience of another child away at school...
...Isn't it fortunate that one of us doesn't have to cart all kinds of duplicate junk back home...
...In any case, we spent most of the two hour ride concentrating intently on the New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle (a pox on you, Mr...
...Not because I was afraid that everything wouldn't fit, but because ISvas watching the faces of the three people on the other sjde of the room...
...Her guitar, of course...
...Actually, Alison—rather defiaptly—chose a tee-shirt that was emblazoned "Brandeis University Bronstein Weekend...
...But the old fear has dissipated, and now, it is not just a piano we want, but a concert grand...
...And so will I...
...This is a together, caring young woman whose problem tends to be that she gives too much of herself, diffusing her energies to the point where there's not enough left over for her...
...Then the trunk, which held, in addition to some miscellaneous necessities— calligraphy equipment, iron, cosmetics and toiletries, lucite organizer—her shoes (10 pairs...
...There was never any question of not having a refrigerator...
...orderly...
...Susan handled herself magnificently, stopping every now and again to say hello to someone who looked familiar— she'd spent a long weekend on the campus last spring...
...The housing committee, it seemed, had done its work well...
...This is college," she said...
...I think she's going to be fine...
...Until it was all together...
...Remember, all five of us are going, so we've only got the trunk...
...The dresser top had been arranged with pristine dignity...
...What's more, she had, and has always had, the benefit of the experience of her older sister, two years her senior...
...Mary feels a little badly," she said, without even a trace of whine in her voice, "that Susan came with so much...
...When Mary's mother asked for our phone number in Boston, I knew I had overreacted wildly...
...First, of course, came the refrigerator...
...Nary a stray gum wrapper, not even much of a traffic jam, and lo, a perfect spot to park the monster van...
...Good, I thought to myself...
...Mary had, by then, finished her unpacking, and she and her mother and sister left us to get on with our tasks...
...How come you're so dressed up...
...Only two—she restrained herself...
...Damn, I thought to myself...
...It was all so...
...A huge cardboard carton filled with more books and records...
...We are delighted that she—and we—have reached this season, and enormously grateful...
...About two weeks prior to Susan's departure for school, I suggested to her father that perhaps we should borrow a van for the trip...
...It was, to borrow a phrase, fully packed...
...The faces, unfamiliar, were smiling, open...
...Pants...
...There were the garment bags with her hanging clothes—pants, skirts, blouses, dresses, robes...
...It was as trauma-free a college admission as anyone could hope to have...
...We left the reception and ambled about the campus...
...When it became clear that Alison would not be successful in luring her sister to Brandeis (for which she should become chief of public relations), she contented herself with providing advice and counsel on "a list of absolute essentials for college freshmen...
...pale blue sheets...
...When Alison went away to school, I didn't know what a study buddy was, either...
...Because I'm the mother," I reminded them...
...Please, I reached out to them silently...
...In my head, I began to frame possible defenses...
...She chose a small, fine, eastern, liberal arts institution to which she received early decision acceptance last January...
...No good...
...Things were never very important in her life...
...On Susan's dresser, much later, after some reshuffling of furniture, was lovingly placed . . . the refrigerator...
...Plenty of room," he said, rather too confidently...
...It is the eve of Susan's departure for college...
...A popcorn popper, a coffee maker, and assorted kitchen gadgets...
...Her bed was neatly made— lavender quilt...
...Her stereo...
...Not a credit card was left untouched...
...Two winsome, smiling, ail-American looking youngsters, nametags announcing their student advisory status, welcomed us, gave us a campus map, pointed us in the direction of the relevant dormitory...
...Possessions bespeak our newly perceived sense of security...
...Here's your room key...
...On the snowy white dresser scarf (Lord, I thought, I haven't seen one of those in years) were several pretty bottles of cologne, a tiny milk glass lamp, a clear glass vase with a poof of tiny white dried flowers, two small and very fine looking portrayals of, I believe, another Mary, and, happy day, a Rubik's Cube...
...After all, it costs $52 a year to rent one, and spending $100 for a new one that we'd own seemed a reasonable thing to do, given that someone in the family will be able to use it for the next eight or nine years...
...I doubt it," I said...
...Wrong...
...Mitch is always taken aback just a bit when anyone calls him sir...
...In it was a list of musts and a much longer list of optionals...
...Oh, she shouldn't feel that way even for a moment/' I said, remembering to keep my voice, too, carefully controlled...
...An hour or so later, Mary's mother and I faced one another over the punch table at the President's reception...
...We went back to her room...
...And, item for item, nothing seemed especially excessive...
...She appears to have acquired the best of the "middle child traits" with few of the hangups, but, I keep saying, it is still too soon to know that for sure...
...she said...
...my daughters asked me...
...And suddenly, there were the great stone posts and gracious open gates that I remembered from our interview visit of a year ago...
...Her mother, perfectly groomed and lovely looking, greeted me with a warm smile and a firm handshake...
...She couldn't be more ready for college...
...A wicker waste-basket and a plastic pail for her showering supplies...
...Ridiculous," he said...
...The father, too, was being cheerful and stoic...
...The truth was that this particular leave-taking was so painful to both of us—not to mention to Susan's siblings—that in a private moment a week earlier we had agreed not to talk about it...
...Dana was trying very hard to be brave...
...And neat, but definitely not new, shirts...
...How strong is her sense of self...
...Wouldn't it be fun to get together when I get up to Boston...
...We considered the refrigerator, purchased only hours before we left, a good investment...
...and she hasn't taken her winter boots yet) and her pillow and stuffed animals...
...Their "good" jeans...
...That's ridiculous," he responded...
...Please, please don't judge her—or us—on the basis of all this paraphernalia...
...I had a little gridget in the pit of my stomach...
...It's true that the little refrigerator, still crated, did take up a fair amount of space...
...Mary and Susan had had one rather lengthy telephone conversation that served to ease Susan's anxiety level markedly...
...Finally—I was getting annoyed with myself for worrying over it—I chose a simple dark print cotton dress, a summer blazer and espasirijles...
...Then there were two small duffle bags full of clothes—sweaters (but not the really heavy winter ones), shirts, underwear, sox, nightgowns, leotards, whatever...
...We'd already learned that Mary had a sister now at Harvard, and a brother who'd already been graduated from Yale...
...It appeared that the two girls shared many common interests...
...Welcome, Susan...
...And then, from the bottom of her almost empty trunk, she pulled her Shabbat candlesticks—a Bat Mitz-vah gift from our congregation— and a box of candles...
...she asked...
...Of course, we brought everything from Group A and just about everything from Group B and, for good measure, a small but significant Group C of our own...
...The campus, as beautiful as I'd remembered it, shone...
...Understand that this is not a spoiled, overindulged stereotype, hoping that, somehow, my brain waves would penetrate across the room...
...The young men who greeted us in the dorm lobby were very handsome...
...I can't decide which...
...shape, although she was putting on a remarkably (I thought) good front...
...For a moment, I panicked...
...She thinks she's not contributing enough...
...It's one of those cushion-type things that looks like the back and arms of a chair with no seat or legs that goes at the head of the bed, making it possible to sit up comfortably to read...
...A Boston fern, to establish her city of origin...
...I, on the other hand, considered and rejected several possibilities before settling on an appropriate outfit...
...Susan's roommate Mary, with her mother and her sister, had already arrived...
...She is the one who never knows what she wants for her birthday, whose idea of heaven is not—as, I confess, mine occasionally is—to be locked into Bloom-ingdale's to play for a night after everybody else has gone home, but rather to stroll off into a perfect sunset, her guitar strapped to her back, ready for almost anything...
...It was a thorough job...
...And if there's one thing we want for our kids, it's security...
...End of discussion...
...And, indeed, Mary was as delightful as she'd sounded...
...What's more, she herself had spent the last two years at boarding school...
...Too casual...
...Coming to Brandeis is more like coming to camp...
...The place looked quite respectable—and somehow comforting, with all those familiar things in their new setting...
Vol. 6 • October 1981 • No. 9
