"Where are you going, my little one, little one? Where are you going, my baby my own? Turn around and you're two, turn around and you're four, turn around and you're a young girl going out of the door."
This song (originally sung by Harry Belafonte) is the background music to my life these days as Kendall's focus turns more and more on college and less and less on home and high school. Her graduation is in less than two months; then she'll be gone for orientation, working, saying goodbye to friends...and POOF! before we can say "turn around", she'll be out the door.
This morning she went to have her portraits taken - as a favor to me. She hates having her picture taken. But seventeen is such a special age...she's a blend of girl and woman, on the brink of change, the whole world ahead of her. I want to somehow freeze her like this, and Vasara Photography here in town manages to capture a sense of the person in their photographs. Beautiful images - visual art - all outside. The drawback to that is the wind, and as much as I love the wind, it's starting to get on my nerves. Her first appointment last month was canceled - too windy. Her session this morning was cut short - too windy. They'll try again Friday morning.
Soon we'll be addressing invitations, picking out the last prom dress, keeping our fingers crossed at the scholarship awards ceremony, listening to the last band concert, and watching her leave the platform smiling, diploma in hand, eyes on the future.
I'm treasuring these last moments of her REALLY at home. Her last season of soccer began last week, and for once, I'm grateful for these long distance games which mean hours together in the car, sometimes talking, sometimes laughing, mostly quiet, but together. I watch her on the field, grateful for my zoom lens so I can get in close, snapping shots of her pushing herself, fighting for the ball, working with her teammates, getting knocked down but jumping right back up to give it all she's got. I'm seeing that "something in her face" that tells me she'll be just fine. And that's what I've hoped for all of her life.
