to my daughter
August 26, 2014 § 2 Comments
Yesterday was your first day of fifth grade. Unlike so many years when you lingered among peers and their parents exchanging hugs and smiling for photographs, this year you slipped quietly inside the building to collect a new responsibility. I wish I could have seen you slip into the bright orange belt that accompanies the happy task of becoming a patrol guard, I imagine it was punctuated with the same dimples that rewarded news of the privilege. Instead I left you to your task, honoring your need to take direction and lend assistance, despite a secret wish to spy from the perimeter of your experience.
On the walk home I noted the length of my single shadow across the sidewalk and registered the irony that the little girl who used to give me cause for chase along this path could now walk so confidently under the weight of authority. The little toe that would teeter just across the line of good behavior now informing others by example. It was a reminder of the beautiful complexities of your possibilities.
Last night, after unloading your day’s stories and trading your patrol belt for soccer cleats, you blazed a new trail. It has been years since you attempted soccer, your last endeavor was marked by flushed cheeks and sleepy limbs in the company of Kindergarten classmates. This time you raced towards a damp field between a sprinkling of raindrops accompanied by a close friend. The only two girls you moved confidently into the fray of boys, asserting yourself into their comradery. This time I stayed to watch.
There was one moment among all the others that I loved best. Towards the beginning, just after introductions and silliness, the coach demanded laps. While the other children, familiar with the routine moved forward, you looked first to the coach then back to your teammates. Registering the expectation and error you compensated by stretching your legs to catch up; chin turned toward the sky you began to steadily pass others until you settled into the middle of the pack and held your pace.
There were other moments, too. The look on your face when you realized you had forgotten your water bottle; the shaky length of your form as you fought tired arms to execute a determined push-up; your arm tossed casually around your friend’s shoulder in a stolen moment or the way you casually proclaimed a willingness to wear a number I knew to be your favorite. Colorful demonstrations of your personality that complimented exercises in character.
I wonder if I tell you enough that I envy your strengths. Not the tough exterior of false bravado, but the tenderness of your most genuine endeavors. Those exhausting moments of uncertainty when it is so much easier to look away, step aside, or hide behind excuses. I love the way your toes still stretch across the lines we don’t always acknowledge. I used to worry I might not be woman enough to model such character and so it is immensely humbling to watch you lead, ever modeling for me the woman I hope you grow to be.
Love, Mom
scribblechic 
Again, just lovely. It’s so bitter sweet watching our baby girls become women. I love the image of your daughter in her patrol guard belt.
Thanks, Janice! It is, indeed, bittersweet.