Ravenna Grows Up

Parents experience an enormous sense of loss when their girls enter this new land.  They miss the daughters who sang in the kitchen... Fortunately adolescence is time-limited.

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Yesterday I was walking through town and ran into Ravenna, a 17-year-old friend of mine who I hadn't seen in a long while.  I was struck by how grown-up, confident, and naturally gorgeous she appeared.  Her hair was long and straight, her face un-makeupped.  We chatted for a while and she told me that she had just gotten back from a three-week writing workshop and that she wants to be a lawyer.  I was very impressed, mainly by her ability to articulate so clearly and confidently her goals and desires.

I first met Ravenna when she was a giggly fifth grader and best friends with another girl in the same community.  I fell in love with their radiance and silliness — and they were impressed that I actually knew their secret gibberish language — and we soon became buddies.

Ravenna lives with her parents in a co-housing community (the community shares garden space, meets weekly, and eats some meals together in a common house).  Her mom is an organic farmer.  Her dad, among other things, is learned in folk dancing from around the world.

By the end of sixth grade, Ravenna and her best friend were in a full-on roller-coaster friendship.  Ravenna wasn't as popular and had a rough year of it.  Her parents decided to send her to the local private school where she fared much better and made many friends.

When she transferred to the local high school, she was a knock-out sensation and instantly popular.  Her friends told her that she was so pretty and asked why she didn't wear more makeup.  Much to her mother's horror, Ravenna became, for lack of a better description, a Paris Hilton wannabe.  She posted some glam pictures on My Space, wore lots of makeup, and dressed to the nines.

I had a long talk with her mom about beauty and what the pressures of high school can do to a girl even if she has grown up with a completely different value system.  I remember driving by her once during those years and mistaking her for a woman in her late twenties.  It made me sad and nostalgic for the radiant little girl I once knew.

So seeing Ravenna on the street, the thought occurred to me that she had hatched, that she had come full circle.  Her parents' value of community service and intellectual pursuit had won out.  This is a girl, I thought to myself, that is going to go out in the world and do something grand and majestic.  Her confidence and articulateness made me aware of another fact: she seemed to be completely herself — not trying to fit into any narrow girl box.  Her natural ease accentuated her beauty and poise.  This was heartening and exciting.