I remember her first day of school so clearly. She told me what she was planning to wear. She worried that she wouldn’t fit in. She was self-conscious about carrying a backpack.
“Everyone else will have one, too. You won’t stick out,” I said.
“But I will,” she said. “Fifty-two-year-olds don’t wear backpacks.”
My mother started school last fall. With the fourth (and final) child off to college, Mom and Dad packed up 32 years of marriage, sold the house, put a very confused dog into the car and moved, like 20-somethings, back to the Bay Area. Finally, it was Mom’s turn to pursue a dream.
Each morning, she wakes up in time to catch the 5:29 a.m. BART train to San Francisco. At her locker, she changes into her white jacket, green ascot and the required hat she has never let me see because “oh, my gosh, it’s horrible.” She puts her thermometer into her left sleeve pocket and heads to seven hours of classes at the California Culinary Academy. At school’s end, she will be a pastry chef.
It is a rigorous course of study, but Mom took things in stride until her first big test, on the chemistry of baking. (If you don’t believe there’s serious chemistry involved in baking, then you aren’t making very good crème caramel.) The last time she took a final, Hotel California was still just a building. She was worried the entire nature of testing had changed. I found myself glancing at the clock all day, wondering how she was doing. I was sure she had stayed up too late cramming the night before.
That evening, I got the call. It was “awful,” she was sure she had failed, she didn’t belong there and they would certainly kick her out.
“They wouldn’t have accepted you if you didn’t belong there,” I assured her. “You did your best, that’s all you can do. It’s out of your hands now, so you just have to move on and try your hardest in your other classes.” Wow, I was scaring myself. I sounded like . . . my mom.
As the year went on, she became a seasoned student, increasingly comfortable with daily quizzes, group projects and spun sugar. There was the week she was creating her pastry-shop business plan and got only three hours of sleep each night. (It was followed, naturally, by the week she got sick.) There was the shining moment when the chef praised her sacher torte. Of course, I think all of her pastries are brilliant; everyone does. But I knew the chef’s praise meant something different—I remembered how elated I felt when a professor told me I had potential.
She called me one December morning as she hurriedly shopped for Christmas presents, keeping family traditions intact despite her schedule. “I’m ditching school!” she announced.
“What? Aren’t you going to miss something important?” I asked and then smacked my forehead, reminding myself that she is an adult. She can decide when to skip class. Which is pretty much what she said right back to me.
Dad beams about his pastry-chef wife—and his ready access to pains au chocolat. When guests come over they see a photo of Mom’s wedding cake displayed on the fridge. My culinary comfort level is boxed brownie mix, but I try to keep up with the intricacies of brioche and baguettes, so that I can ask her intelligent questions.
She has become a role model for my Stanford friends, who worry, at the ripe old age of 28, that they’re stuck in their careers. Mom has proved them wrong: it’s never too late, you’re never too old, and the garage is never so full you can’t box it up and move.
Still, what she has done is something most don’t have the courage for, so when she suggested she may not attend her graduation ceremony, I had to put my foot down. “Oh, yes, you are going,” I said. “We’re already planning a party.” I want the chance to cheer her on in public, but more than that I want her to feel that sense of accomplishment and completion. Besides, I know if she doesn’t go, she’ll regret it when she gets older.
SUMMER (MOORE) BATTE, '99, is production editor for Stanford. Her mom gets As on chemistry finals.
