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| Greg Clarke |
I REMEMBER her first day
of school so clearly. She told me what she was planning
to wear. She worried that she wouldn’t fit in.
She was self-conscious about carrying a backpack.
“Everyone else will have one, too. You won’t
stick out,” I said.
“But I will,” she said. “Fifty-two-year-olds
don’t wear backpacks.”
My mother started school last fall. With the fourth
(and final) child off to college, Mom and Dad packed
up 32 years of marriage, sold the house, put a very
confused dog into the car and moved, like 20-somethings,
back to the Bay Area. Finally, it was Mom’s turn
to pursue a dream.
Each morning, she wakes up in time to catch the 5:29
a.m. BART train to San Francisco. At her locker, she
changes into her white jacket, green ascot and the required
hat she has never let me see because “oh, my gosh,
it’s horrible.” She puts her thermometer
into her left sleeve pocket and heads to seven hours
of classes at the California Culinary Academy. At school’s
end, she will be a pastry chef.
It is a rigorous course of study, but Mom took things
in stride until her first big test, on the chemistry
of baking. (If you don’t believe there’s
serious chemistry involved in baking, then you aren’t
making very good crème caramel.) The last time
she took a final, Hotel California was still just a
building. She was worried the entire nature of testing
had changed. I found myself glancing at the clock all
day, wondering how she was doing. I was sure she had
stayed up too late cramming the night before.
That evening, I got the call. It was “awful,”
she was sure she had failed, she didn’t belong
there and they would certainly kick her out.
“They wouldn’t have accepted you if you
didn’t belong there,” I assured her. “You
did your best, that’s all you can do. It’s
out of your hands now, so you just have to move on and
try your hardest in your other classes.” Wow,
I was scaring myself. I sounded like . . . my mom.
As the year went on, she became a seasoned student,
increasingly comfortable with daily quizzes, group projects
and spun sugar. There was the week she was creating
her pastry-shop business plan and got only three hours
of sleep each night. (It was followed, naturally, by
the week she got sick.) There was the shining moment
when the chef praised her sacher torte. Of course, I
think all of her pastries are brilliant; everyone does.
But I knew the chef’s praise meant something different—I
remembered how elated I felt when a professor told me
I had potential.
She called me one December morning as she hurriedly
shopped for Christmas presents, keeping family traditions
intact despite her schedule. “I’m ditching
school!” she announced.
“What? Aren’t you going to miss something
important?” I asked and then smacked my forehead,
reminding myself that she is an adult. She can decide
when to skip class. Which is pretty much what she said
right back to me.
Dad beams about his pastry-chef wife—and his ready
access to pains au chocolat. When guests come over they
see a photo of Mom’s wedding cake displayed on
the fridge. My culinary comfort level is boxed brownie
mix, but I try to keep up with the intricacies of brioche
and baguettes, so that I can ask her intelligent questions.
She has become a role model for my Stanford friends,
who worry, at the ripe old age of 28, that they’re
stuck in their careers. Mom has proved them wrong: it’s
never too late, you’re never too old, and the
garage is never so full you can’t box it up and
move.
Still, what she has done is something most don’t
have the courage for, so when she suggested she may
not attend her graduation ceremony, I had to put my
foot down. “Oh, yes, you are going,” I said.
“We’re already planning a party.”
I want the chance to cheer her on in public, but more
than that I want her to feel that sense of accomplishment
and completion. Besides, I know if she doesn’t
go, she’ll regret it when she gets older.
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