10/15/10: A worn pair of black clogs...

...an equally worn, patched pair of Carhardt jeans.

The jeans made me think about the different things I did to jeans as a teen-ager, since brand new jeans weren't quite the way I wanted them to be.  First, it was embroidery: flowers, butterflies and peace symbols on the back pockets.  Later, I'd ball the jeans up in a bucket of diluted bleach to get a mottled look and a softer material.  Later still, I'd tear out the side seam and put in a panel from a pair of old jeans to widen the leg from the hip down.  I was thinking of these adjustments - some of them rather involved - as one example of how teens try to make something their own.  And that got me to thinking about teens in general and that time of life.

When I tell people that Kami is 12, I invariably get some reaction like, "Oh, you'll be in for it soon."  These ominous warnings are about Kami as representative of a soon-to-be emerging teen, not Kami the person she is right now; but I wonder how it might be different to have a teen-ager in the house if one feels interested in this time of life and feels it holds something valuable - rather than that it's a time to dread?  How might I be with it differently if I think of adolescence as a treasure map where there will be clues, and it's my job to figure those out on behalf of my kid because that's what I signed up for by having one?

There is undeniably something about adolescence where we can see more easily into the inconsistencies of the world, where we can more readily recognize our own passions.  Think back for yourself.  What did you Know then?  Is there a way to see the outrage, the moodiness, the anger, the sorrow, the joy as a sign pointing a teen toward themselves, and that it's the adult's job to notice this for them when they can't think of it themselves? 

Of course, parents do this intuitively all the time.  I think of my mom, recognizing my outrage at a clogged stream and reminding me that I could organize a clean-up, and a couple years later taking me to the Yorktown Museum so I could make soap and dip candles.  I think of my dad, handing me books: "You might find this interesting."  Books on writing and feminism.  There were those times where I'd feel like I was going to just jump out of my skin, and then my mom and I would drive to Albany to see a movie, or my dad would suggest I take the car around the Reservoir.

I want to stay awake for this, alert to the signposts.