There are many life lessons to be learned in the early morning on the Charles River, trying to master the much-harder-than-it-looks task of moving in perfect synchrony with seven other people in a narrow boat. The reward is pure teamwork, forged in muscle and sweat through the complete sublimation of ego and surrender of personal authority. For me, in the year I first experienced the empty nest, the curriculum this summer is to see through coach and coxswain the young women my daughters have become.

Save for the occasional visit to the restaurants where one or the other of my daughters has served or seated diners, I have never seen my children at work. Even then I am more eavesdropper than witness. Here on the river I am more than mere witness. I am the beneficiary of the expertise and training these two have garnered. I listen to them. I do (or try to do) what they tell me to do. In this boat are a judge, a lawyer, an architect, a chiropractor, a businessman or two. For us, the bosses wear braids and ponytails.

There is more to this, of course, than simply projecting my rowing teachers’ professionalism onto my girls (oops, my young women). I come to my river guides as they are now, unencumbered - and unblessed - by images of them as little girls. Did either ever love penguins? Did either ever pretend the peas on her high chair tray were dolls and populate her fantasies with legumes and Cheerios? I imagine that when my parents read the stories I write for this newspaper, part of them still sees the child who asked too many questions.

It is my coach’s parents, not I, who notice the ways she is not as grown up as she seems. It is my coxswain’s parents, not I, who notice the lingering immaturity in their still-teenage daughter. They may miss the picture I see, but I miss what they see.

Yet as powerful as childhood is, whether our children’s or our own, the fact is that, God willing, most of the child-parent relationship occurs when all parties are adults. That is the transition I am navigating, and I will surely make - and am surely making - mistakes along the way.

In rowing, a boat is “set’’ when all oars move together over the water in one smooth plane, none dragging on the water and none reaching toward the sky. The rower’s first instinct is to overcorrect, to make a big move to right the boat with little regard to the intertwined relationships that make us a crew. The trick is to make small adjustments, the sum of which result in a balanced boat. I hope I remember this as I traverse this latest transition.

Thus I start my summer days pushing off the dock, striving to perfect my stroke, knowing there is always more to learn, never so totally focused that I don’t notice the great blue heron that sometimes stands at the river’s edge.

A few years ago, a fellow rower’s mother visited. That season we were taking turns coxing the boat, and on this particular morning we lacked a ninth rower to steer us down the Charles. So the visiting mother, good sport and adventurous soul, volunteered for the job. With her son facing her from the “stroke’’ seat, she safely maneuvered the boat under his gentle guidance.

My days usually end with a phone call to my parents in California. I still hear in their voices the vigor they once had and I remember my own breaking away from them. Like the river and the changing city on its shores and my persistent attempts to row a more balanced boat, our relationship continues to evolve as I imagine my relationship with my daughters will continue to evolve, with all of us, I pray, making the small adjustments that life, like the river, constantly demands.