I asked my 13-year-old daughter, Norah, if she wanted to watch True Spirit, and in true teenager fashion, she interrogated me on what it was about. This is something she started doing about a year ago, and it feels like some sort of job interview — one where I’m pleading my case as to why she should want to spend time with me, while she tries to decide if it’s worth the risk of damaging her cool by spending a couple hours watching a movie with her nerdy 40-something dad who buys his pants at Costco.
I told her that it’s about Jessica Watson (played by Teagan Croft), who at age 16 became the youngest person to ever sail around the world alone and unassisted. “It looks pretty inspirational,” I said. “And I get the impression that you could use some inspiration right now.”
She’d been sick with a cold for the past few days, and as I attempted to sell her on True Spirit, she was sniffling and coughing from the corner of our sectional, wearing pink and white pajamas with llamas on them and sitting under a faded My Little Pony quilt. She’d been texting her friend about some developing drama, most likely concerning a boy at school, which was all on-brand for her at the moment. As I stood in the kitchen waiting for an answer, it seemed so clear that she had one foot in her grade-school years and the other in teenage life — all of it one step closer to adulthood, a phase of life that seemed closer now than ever before. It filled me with both excitement and dread.
Eventually, after a pause to send a text, she half nodded, so I cleaned up her tissues, sat next to her on the couch and found True Spirit on Netflix.
Norah doesn’t usually dive into a movie this quickly. Even though she was sick, and her phone was buzzing, all of that seemed to get put on hold. She was enthralled watching this young woman prepare to tackle the world. Literally. On a sailboat.
But about 20 minutes into the film, there was this moment when Jessica’s father, Roger (played by Josh Lawson), was interviewed by a shady newscaster. Jessica had recently wrecked her boat on a trial run before the big voyage, and the media was in a frenzy over it. Roger told the interviewer: “Any teen crashing their vehicle doesn’t exactly fill you with confidence.” Jessica’s family was watching, and everyone looked at Roger, who then had to justify why he, even for a moment, showed a glimmer of doubt in his daughter’s ability to do something as incredible (and incredibly dangerous) as sail around the world all alone.
Norah was leaning into my shoulder, sniffling. If I were to use one word to describe her expression, it would be deflated. Almost like she was the one gearing up to sail around the world, and I had doubted her ability to do it.
I gave her a nudge. She sat up straight, and I said, “If you ever sailed around the world, or something like it, I’d be incredibly proud. I want you to know that. But I’d also be terrified, and those two emotions in one body would be almost too much to contain. I’m guessing that is exactly what Jessica’s father was going through.”
Norah looked up at me for what seemed like a long time, but was probably only a few seconds. In that moment, it felt like the glass between us — the one that’s between all parents and their kids, where teenagers are so hungry for any reason to believe their parents are their adversaries and not their cheerleaders — got a little clearer.
“To be honest with you, this is what it looks like to watch your child grow and become their own,” I said. “Watching you become more independent feels so amazing. That’s the honest truth. But it’s also so scary because I love you so much. When you leave our home, I imagine it will feel a lot like putting you on a sailboat to travel around the world. I’ll believe in you and I’ll be proud of you, but gosh, kiddo. I’ll be nervous.”
By the time I finished speaking, Norah stopped for a moment to blow her nose. Then she smiled at me, and it seemed obvious that she better understood what it meant to be the father of a daughter you absolutely adore and believe in, but also feel an incredible need to protect. I believe that conflicting mix of emotions is exactly what Roger was feeling as he put his daughter on a sailboat, and it’s exactly how I was feeling as I looked down at this sweet little girl who was rapidly becoming an independent young woman.
Norah leaned back into my shoulder, and after a few moments, she rolled onto her side, put her arm across my stomach and said, “I love you, Poppy.” I smiled, and patted her shoulder. “I love you too, kiddo.” We stayed like that until the end of the movie.
