Sunset, Sunrise

Sitting in the late summer sun, watching shadows spread across the parking lot as the sun sinks. we In a few hours darkness will settle in, marking the end of a beautiful day, unmarred by the storms of early on.

I'm in a coffee shop, killing time while I wait for my college daughter to complete her photo session. In what seems to be youthful enthusiasm, she is working toward a theater degree, with vague dreams of a career there. She's been in several plays, does a masterful job of learning her lines and applying herself, and sometimes makes a masterful presentation. But the world-weary father in me sees one theater student among many, and doesn't quite see the spark that sets one actress apart from another. But then, who really knows?

What I do know is that she loves being on stage, playing roles. That seems impossible to me, I don't think I could ever get past the point of self-consciousness, thinking through a role rather than acting. She says it's just the opposite for her -- when she's up there, she becomes that character, and feels a freedom she doesn't find in life. Something I can understand intellectually, but could never experience.

Of course, largely to appease her parents, she has a second major, cultural anthropology, which is almost close enough to science to satisfy her scientist mother. And she's so damned smart, a double major deans list from a prestigious university. She also has a part-time job in a research lab working with DNA and viruses. doing so well that her big boss researcher has recruited her to write a paper on the project for journal publication.

A Renaissance woman.

And yet we worry. Understandably. This world is not a kind one toward dreams, and it can arbitrarily award success and impose failure. It would have been far more palatable and soothing to her mother and I for her to follow in her mother's footsteps, take advantage of mom's contacts and experiences, and transition from school to a lab.

But she doesn't want to be in her mother's shadow, which is an understandable psychological goal, but boy the parent in me would like to push her back in, and not have her find her own way to her own sunrise. So I fretfully stand back, offering what support I can, and praying that she safely and joyfully find her way. Is that too much to ask?