scribblechic

Yesterday we visited my husband’s high school, now our son’s. Forward steps were met with backward glances; old memories intertwined with new experiences.

My husband identified familiar faces in framed photographs and structural differences around old corners as our son greeted friends and peers shuffling through the monotonous maze of required materials, photographs, and instruction. I visited with a close friend sharing this milestone while absorbing my daughter’s restless observations.

It was a day I will remember by sound. The staccato of footsteps echoing against painted brick hallways of uniform lockers, tapping out a morse code of stolen moments and  friendship; memories of congested stairwells and rushed passing periods, the smell of lettermen jackets and the crinkle of letters folded into intricate envelopes.

As we left the air-conditioned hallways for the sun drenched remains of our summer day, I could hear the answering squeak of new gym shoes across decades of days long past; a borrowed memory of another time and place marking a new beginning.

I am my father’s daughter, my son’s mother; these titles entangle creating uncomfortable places of exaggerated awareness. In my son’s discomfort and my father’s discontent there are images of self I cannot disclaim.

I wear my father’s disappointment for my imperfections with the same uncertainty I worry over my son’s otherness; I offer both empathy and anxiety with mixed messages of acceptance and expectation. I measure success against a standard that suffocates bravery and avoid failure at the cost of success.

I push against the confinement of inadequacy with words of encouragement for unique qualities that define individuality while marking opportunities to evolve into an ideal expression of self. Despite the careful balance of words, I hear the caution of counsel that contradicts the spirit of celebration.

These thoughts, unfinished and untidy, have sat here unattended in a draft that seems to dangle uncertainly demanding attention. Wading into discomfort I am untangling my doubts least I mistake my faults with my son’s needs or my father’s fears.

Visiting an old friend’s new home yesterday I heard the rushed tread of children’s feet carving a path between floors and giggles bubbling beneath bedroom doors. The snap of latches as young explorers invaded a new territory and the amused groans of sleepy corners settling into a response.

Pristine walls, newly painted and uninterrupted by adornment, reflected ribbons of daylight through windows bare of tapestry; washing old rooms in new colors. Underfoot, patchwork rugs punctuated the length of warm wooden floors, the contrast of textures shaping each room’s personality and inviting expectations of holiday gatherings and lazy weekend mornings to come.

Weighted furniture and a sprinkling of old keepsakes anchor memories against the canvas of something new while cardboard boxes stand sentry, a stubborn reminder of the work of making a home. It is a happy contradiction the comforts of resting places and the riddle of sorting possessions, conjuring an expectation of casual convenience with deceptively well choreographed placement.

Like the frame of the house stretched protectively beneath its inhabitants, settling a home is a labor of love; a gentle yielding to accommodate change. A threshold for possibility.

Personalities flit through my days, larger than life, pressing against my attention and distracting me with the fullness of their presence. I watch them, enamored by their casual confidence and easy humor, innocent brazenness and conspiratorial certainty. They move within skins that cradle strength beneath emotions poorly hidden, tender in spirit and reckless with entitlement. Generous and eager, impatient and steadfast, they are bold in word and deed. I feel weightless in comparison; the whim of my thoughts and uncertainty of self an internal taunting. Old muscles and new thoughts dare me to step inside discomfort, moving outside the security of invisibility; inside the weight of self.

Here, among the intimacies of our thoughts and an endless wealth of words, there is a temptation to filter our lives; shaping our image of self by softening hard lines and tinting tones into a gentler suggestion of self. The composition of our thoughts as we translate emotions into words can be tumbled and constructed to lend depth as easily as they offer privacy. It is a medium of honesty and artistry.

Yesterday’s post was a temptation of denial; ugly truths whose words sat against my morning heavy and unwelcome as I greeted the day. Cumbersome and unpliable these truths cannot be molded into something beautiful, only silenced or shared.

Today I am sweeping my words with hope like broad strokes against a chalkboard, leaving faded lines of yesterday’s words upon my slate. Sifting through thoughts dusted in sentiment and marking a new day with footnotes that stick to my path informing each new direction.

Yesterday the hurt and discomfort of a loved one’s behavior clung to thoughts like clothes a size too small against wet skin. No matter how my husband and I arranged our words or performed daily tasks the fabric of harm pulled tightly against our efforts restricting our movements and tugging at unpleasant emotions.

That is until our daughter clothed herself in blame, wearing the burden of responsibility for the quiet misery that had threaded itself through the days beginning with her birthday. Sweet, sensitive, and intuitive beyond her years our daughter assumed the debt of others’ joy innocently and with love. Rather than drain the evening of play, she endeavored to fill broken spirits holding her happiness in trade.

The harm that my husband and I have worked to hide from our children behind acts of hope and good intentions was misplaced upon our daughter’s shoulders. Rather than shield our children with silent reassurances that ring hollow, perhaps we must inform more mindful boundaries of worth and respect; recognizing the value of response over reaction and creating a dialogue of accountability in place of blame. Preserving the sanctity of our home as a safe haven for honesty and joy rather than bartering an illusion of loyalty at the cost of well-being.

The celebratory spirit of this past week has been shadowed by the complicated company of family; unhealthy patterns of disrespect and selfishness, cancers that consume patience and kindness leaving tender wounds and defensiveness. In even the simplest moments there is an intricate web of distraction perched high atop a net of worry, the contradiction of beauty and safety illuminating the dangerous fall that measures the distance from joy to harm.

We walk on coals whose heat threatens the calloused pieces of hope beneath the tented structure of our home. It is a circus act that postures as a fiction of normal that leaves us all cloaked in ill-fitting masks and postures more garish for their forced brightness. The thin wire that connects our days has left me too tired to balance between acts, it is time to clear the air of cables and costumes.