Greetings from Glasgow

Hope and I are in Glasgow for the week, as I am attending an international education conference. This is our first big trip since Mexico last year and only our second since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. It is the first trip that has had Hope out, hitting the city alone. I bought her a hop-on-hop-off bus pass and left for my conference this morning.

I don’t really get to spend that much time with Hope these days. Work has just been brutal for me this last year. HR issues, projects, a major grant, more HR issues…it’s a bit of a grind, and honestly, I’m not in a season of job enjoyment. It’s just been one crisis after another for 12 long, grueling months. I get home, walk the dog, get some dinner, and retire to my room, usually my bed. I’m exhausted all the time. Hope often works in the evenings or is out with friends in the evenings, and so we really are kind of ships passing in the night. It’s been nice to have some uninterrupted time with her the last couple of days.

I tried to take her shopping this afternoon. I’ll probably try again tomorrow. I wanted to get her a few nice items she could wear as she hunts for a job better than the movie theatre. I want her to go back to school, but realistically that is unlikely to happen soon. So, I’ve been encouraging her to consider some other options. To support that I’m hoping to pick up some slacks, maybe a couple of blouses, maybe some cute shoes.

And then we got to a shop. And she liked nothing but the sweatshirts and pants. Second store–she didn’t even like the sweats there. I chuckled to myself, bought her two plain t-shirts that would replace a few grimy ones back home, and declared it dinner time. As we walked to a restaurant, I silently fretted that maybe she wouldn’t actually ever get the type of job that would have her wearing office wear. Before you know it, I’ve constructed a whole awful narrative about Hope’s life that’s rooted in my fear for her. I was half listening to her when we were walking, as I was thinking about how we have so little in common with respect to style and trends. And what did these disagreements mean? Like, could not be any more different. It’s times like this when I’m like, wow, have I had any influence on how she sees herself? How she sees the world? Any at all?

And then on the sightseeing bus, she points out a bar that banned the presence of women up until the 1970s. My daughter, Hope said, “Yeah, I think we should go in there and order a few drinks just on GP.”I smiled both to myself and to her. I agreed we should definitely pop in and have a drink before leaving just to be sure Black women have livened up the place before we depart. It reminded me that she, I have had an influence on her; she might only want sweats to wear, but I still managed to raise a feminist. I’m proud of that.

We’re off! We have a few more days here and it should be great fun!

#funtimes