Leaving Home

Lynn M Mark

1/23/22

The first thing I remember was the answer my father gave to my question, “What advice do you have for me?”. I was caught off guard by his answer, “Keep your legs together.” I remember the sadness I felt after hearing the words. What I didn’t know then is that he was in the early stages of dementia and that was the best he could come up with.

 My mother and I were going to leave the next day so she could take me to my freshman year in college. I was going thousands of miles away, from Sao Paulo, Brazil, to Leysin, Switzerland for my first year away from home. My parents had chosen this small Swiss town where the American College of Switzerland was located. Their thinking was that I would be safe there. They were worried because I was only 16 when I graduated high school. So they chose a small college in a small Swiss mountain town. When I got there I fell in love with the surroundings, high up in the Swiss Alps.

I could not wait to get out of the house. I was excited about the upcoming trip. I was sad that my high school days were over and that we Seniors were all going to scatter away from each other. I was a little anxious about being that far from home, but not enough to hold me back. All I could think of was the freedom that was going to be mine. I knew nothing about where I was going for the next year and that didn’t matter to me. As much as I loved my parents, I just wanted out of our house.

I’ve tried to remember the very day that I left home. No details come to me other than knowing that my mother and I were going to fly to London for a few days. Then we were going to slowly make our way through mainland Europe to Switzerland. We would have been prepared for a long flight. I would have made some excuse to get across the street for my last smoke in a while. I don’t remember how we got to the airport in Sao Paulo. I don’t remember saying good bye to my father. In fact, I don’t remember the details of that day at all.

I know that I would have been really sad to leave my dog, a sweet black and tan dachshund named Tanny (short for Tanenbaum because she was a Christmas gift one year in Mexico). Tanny was the bright spot in the house. She waited at the door every weekday for me to get home from school. She had a little collection of soup bones from which she would select a bone to deposit at someone’s feet if they were in her inner circle. When we sat in the dining room to eat, she did not beg, but she would sit under the lace curtain and have it drape around her head like a fancy scarf. That always earned her a nibble from somebody’s plate. She was a great source of my joy, so I know that I would have cried over the trauma of saying goodbye to her. 

It makes me sad to think of this emotional connection with an animal versus the seeming detachment from my parents. But I was 16 and thought I was ready for independence from them. I was escaping from house rules to dorm rules in college and I welcomed the change, whatever form it took.

My first year away from home was a grand adventure. I hitchhiked to Paris with some friends, we took a road trip to Benidorm, Spain, for a beach break from the high mountains. We spent a lot of time in a local Swiss pub listening to the latest tunes from the USA and Britain, drinking wine and eating fondue. I think I even studied on occasion. All in all, the experience was magical. I was grateful to my parents for this, and glad they were never aware of the shenanigans I got into.