Boots of Spanish Leather

Sending your kid to high school really does hit different.

Photo by Oziel Gómez on Unsplash

In my 12 years of being a parent, I don’t remember being upset by a single major milestone or transition.

When we dropped my son off at daycare for the first time, I felt nothing. When we dropped him off at primary school for the first time I felt nothing but the purest relief. I’ve always been half decent at embracing the different stages of parenthood and enjoying them for what they are.

But dropping my son off at high school for the very first time was profoundly different.

Even in the lead up I felt it. The weight of it. Not anxiety or stress, more like a mourning in my chest. The heavy sound of a clock ticking.

Part of it was personal. I could remember – vividly – what high school felt like, particularly in those early weeks. I despaired at the thought of my own son experiencing it, and worried about how that exposure might ultimately shape him.

In high school the old manuals are all torn up and shredded. Almost overnight your old concerns and topics of discussion are thought childish. New friends, new ideas, new rules. A new race towards adulthood with a delicate, developing brain that can’t quite take it. New stressors, new people, new experiences. Homework. Actual consequential homework.

And selfishly, I knew that the days of being at the centre of my son’s universe were all but gone. Peer groups were about to massage this boy’s entire being into something unrecognisable and – potentially – grotesque. All that was left to do was release the reins and hope he could handle it.

When the day came and went, I found it all very difficult.

And to an extent he also found it difficult. Not in terms of making friends, or navigating social norms – that stuff is a breeze to him. He struggled with simpler things. The stress of different teachers, time spent travelling to and from school. He missed his old friends and also – believe it or not – his old teachers. He got in trouble in those early days (very unusual for him).

Visibly, I watched him withdraw.

I became stressed by that withdrawal. I lost sleep. One night I tossed and turned until 4 in the morning. A pure chemical anxiety my biology couldn’t shift. Was he with the wrong crowd? Was he at the wrong school? Had we prepared him enough for this? Normally I’d wrestle with errant thoughts at night, then wake up in the morning wondering what the hell that was about? This time I woke up, had a shower, got in the car and drove to work with those same thoughts battering around my scattered, sleep-deprived brain.

—

Thanks to old mate Timothy Chalamet and the recent biopic “A Complete Unknown”, I’ve been listening to a lot of Bob Dylan. I even made a playlist on Spotify. (It’s called “Bob Dylan songs I loke”. I didn’t fix the typo.)

In the car that morning, one song came on that left my exhausted, fragile body completely shattered and broken: Boots of Spanish Leather.

It’s one of Bob Dylan’s most unique songs. It’s essentially a conversation, a series of letters between two lovers, writing to one another as they slowly drift apart, first physically then then on a deeper level.

“Oh, I’m sailin’ away my own true love
I’m sailin’ away in the morning
Is there something I can send you from across the sea
From the place that I’ll be landing?

“No, there’s nothin’ you can send me, my own true love
There’s nothin’ I wish to be ownin’
Just carry yourself back to me unspoiled
From across that lonesome ocean”

At its heart Boots of Spanish Leather is a cynical song. Before singing it at the Carnegie Hall in 1963 Dylan called it a “when you can’t get what you want and have to settle for less kinda song”.

But to me it’s a song about cold, hard acceptance.

I don’t expect anything from my son, but I am figuring out how to process the slow drift that will inevitably occur from this point on. He’s taking the first step in a journey that will take him away from me, towards something unknowable. It won’t happen overnight, but things will change. He will pull away. The distance between us will increase. At some point I’ll have to say goodbye to this version of my son, and figure out how to embrace the new one.

They say that 75% of the time you spend with your children is gone by age 12. I can honestly say spending that time has been the greatest joy of my life. Now it’s my job to make sure that the remaining 25% is equally as joyful.

And as he pulls away to discover himself, I have to be mindful and let him go.

“I got a letter on a lonesome day
It was from her ship a-sailin’
Saying I don’t know when I’ll be comin’ back again
It depends on how I’m a-feelin’

“Well, if you, my love, must think that-a-way
I’m sure your mind is roamin’
I’m sure your heart is not with me
But with the country to where you’re goin’

“So take heed, take heed of the western wind
Take heed of the stormy weather
And yes, there’s something you can send back to me
Spanish boots of Spanish leather.”