Daughter in the Wide World

Oooo, baby, baby, it’s a wide world.  —Cat Stevens

OK, now he’s Yusuf Islam and has done a lot of things to make me scratch my head, but he captured a father’s thoughts about a daughter pretty well 40 years ago with this.

Kylie graduated from high school five months ago.  Since that time, she’s been home about six weeks.  She spent two weeks in Europe in July, and she’s been at the UDLA in Cholula, Mexico, since August 4.  Here she and her mom are in a meditation garden on the campus, not meditating at all, but enjoying being mom and daughter.  We were there two weeks ago.

It was good to see her there, thriving in a world where most people speak Spanish, where her parents aren’t looking over her shoulder, where the din of a thousand high-school dramas has receded into white noise (thanks of Facebook, it’s still audible, but managable).

Who knew she was so adventurous?  As a little girl, during the climaxes of some children’s movies, she usually was behind the sofa, not daring to peek at the screen.  Now she’s climbed ancient mesoamerican pyramids, she’s taken the bus to Mexico City, Veracruz, and Oaxaca, she walks and uses public transportation to get around Cholula (life is possible w/o a car), she teaches English to fifth graders at a local elementary school, she can hold converstations completely in espanol…and those are just the things she’s told us about!  Imagine the things we’ll never know.  Err…on second thought, perhaps not (Jocelyn!).

I could go on, and I could get really sentimental, but I’m of Scandinavian decent, and neither she nor could handle to much of that.  Suffice it to say that Sherry and I are very pleased and proud of Kylie Dalager, a person of substance in this world.

Still, I guess it can’t be helped.

I’ll always remember you as a child, girl.

Note:  You can find a link to Kylie’s blog to the left under Blogroll.