to my daughter
July 31, 2014 § Leave a comment
Today I am marveling at the mystery of time; days that stretch endlessly, then disappear, lost to fleeting years. Like grains of sand that drift between water and wind, it seems impossible to preserve the very minutes that accumulate into years.
Tomorrow is your tenth birthday. Despite the simple math and surety of the date, this fact of numbers feels implausible to my every sensibility. Your own uncomplicated and humble requests for the day seem to invite denial and so I am bewildered by the fiction of reality.
There are no grand expectations or overly choreographed celebrations to differentiate the days, only family and a single friend to mark the milestone. Simple traditions and home.
Everything and nothing tied in heartstrings and candlelit wishes.
With only hours separating the years, I am counting memories in place of minutes. Tallying the impossible to preserve a moment.
Love, Mom
little everythings
July 23, 2014 § 6 Comments
Paperwork. Little reminders that the reality of a new school year is near. Old friends and new experiences wait on the other side of August, expectations as familiar as the smell of freshly sharpened pencils. School forms and supply lists are tucked stubbornly to the margins of our thoughts to stave off the inevitable and preserve the lingering days of summer for rest and play. Instead we invite excuses to engage adventure and we gather among friends to weigh our summer in shared memories; busy nothings and little everythings.
It is a summer of in-between and endings, new beginnings and familiar favorites. A season of nostalgia and anticipation, procrastination and pleasure.
I believe each summer possess a personality unique to our path. Some are rigid and conform to camp schedules and summer school commitments; other summers have been carved around grand expectations that lead us on more distant excursions from home. This summer has been an eclectic happenstance of travel and rest, education and nonsense.
There is a balance, here and now, of home and away, friendship and family. We loop together around change touching on familiar cornerstones of summer; ice cream and miniature golf, pool days and playdates. Quiet hours of late nights and sleepy mornings, punctuated by the noise of our friends’ voices. Tangled hair and calloused feet have worn a pattern of happy distractions and intentional escapes with a restless urgency. Temptation sticks to our thoughts like the sand that lingers against our skin, scattering the sunshine with messy markers of days squandered with joy as we mold summer memories from wishes and wanderlust.
hello
July 19, 2014 § 2 Comments
Thoughts that accumulate in the emptiness of absence and clamor loudly against the hollowness of silence. Some days hello is really a plea to be heard, even if only to listen to the fading repetition of one’s own voice bouncing against unspoken wishes. A weighted word cast into a void we dispense five little letters into the vast chambers of hope, then scavenge the answering sound for an echo of self.
Hello.
tooth ache
July 17, 2014 § 9 Comments
Last night, as I tiptoed into my daughter’s room to quiet the last lingering light peeking from her closet doors, I stumbled into her fears littered like the remnants of play across a restless sleep. On the eve of a dreaded dentist appointment she was bundled beneath her quilt staving off the morning by stacking her worries against the dawn.
Cutting the light and toppling her defenses we lay side by side navigating the impossible unknown of questions without answers; Whatifs and Whynots chasing long yawns and silent tears. Rather than gift false promises in trade for sleep I cradled the discomfort of fear and let my daughter embrace uncomfortable uncertainties until she had exhausted herself naming each worry.
Stealing herself from anxious hours of anticipation, she sleeps soundly stretched against the sunrise this morning while I let her linger, a little longer, in dreams uninterrupted.
unraveling
July 15, 2014 § 8 Comments
It begins with a curious distraction, an imprecise beginning. Amidst the canvas of the ordinary a beautiful imperfection distorts my expectations and promises discovery. Grasping the opportunity to engage more deeply with a fleeting thought, I tug with equal measure unapologetic preoccupation and delighted fascination. Sometimes the thought is little more than a loose thread whose end is neatly extracted and other times the tangle knots itself into my thoughts indefinitely offering a blissful challenge. Once in a while, I find within my own lovely mess a strand by another’s hand that creates a new unraveling.
unsettled
July 13, 2014 § 4 Comments
Fragments of doubt from my last entry persist in chaffing at my consciousness. It is an unfinished thought that whispers in my ear and obscures my attention.
Like a child misplaced and desperate to belong, it is not enough to live among my words.
This wanting is a disruptive guest, unsettling the balance of my emotions. I wonder where I might plant my feet that the wind might blow with a lover’s hand or the sounds might beckon with a siren’s call. Is there a center to our path, an outside that pulls us inward?
These are the hasty strokes of doubt that cannot occupy my dreams tonight as my mind turns uneasily against the unknown.
breadcrumbs
July 12, 2014 § 2 Comments
Enchanted by another’s recognition of self in an environmental place of belonging I have begun considering my own sense of provenance. A question of physical space of origin, an authentic self reflected in the boundaries of land and community, has tickled the corners of my curiosity begging a conviction of connectivity I cannot conjure.
My earliest years were stretched between my parents’ diverging paths, there are few places of permanence that I recall with a sense of self. Instead I find myself scavenging the landmarks of a life scattered, revisiting the past for an intimacy of sight, sound, or scent to guide me.
Some years ago I visited my grandparents’ home, a familiar hallmark of my childhood, anticipating tremors of recognition; internal resonance attuned to time and place. Moving through old rooms I remember looking for markers of belonging, messages of self coded in old fixtures and leftover structures. Instead I found physical boundaries simultaneously familiar and foreign for the contraction of emotions that accompanied the experience.
Last year I weighed an invitation of homecoming for a sentimental school reunion. In my mind I traversed a troubled path to a slumbering past, tempting demons with old ghosts. Unable to follow my thoughts through the hallways of a time lost to the traffic of new travelers, I danced around the corners of remembering unable to reconcile the enormity of memories with the disorienting passage of time.
In as much as I might tenant places of my past, I return to self in faded lines of old script. This is my home; the smell of pencil shavings and the crinkle of paper, wordplay and errant punctuation.
More than bricks and beams language binds me to a path marked by letters scattered like breadcrumbs. Even as the world around me changes, I find my way with words in much the same way one might navigate the sea by stars. My landmarks are guardians of old memories fixed in time and bound in shape by letters that map a lifetime; lifelines to pieces of self in a journey yet incomplete.
Still, this question of belonging lingers in doubt and I cannot help but wonder if there might come a time when I will trespass a moment and stumble into a familiar other that will inform a sense of knowing and create an unexpected homecoming.
to my son
July 11, 2014 § Leave a comment
You are my favorite antagonist; the most eloquent of laments outlining transgressions of comfort. Your language of inconvenience in suffering foolishness is matched only by the nonsensical comedy of errors that accompany exercises in common sense.
The most beautiful pieces of your awkward insistences are your emphatic statements of worldly knowing bound by experiences that most certainly are older than your years. You tether yourself tightly to a sense of security only to leap with messy abandon into a moment’s whim. You are a walking symphony of poorly harmonized instruments and the noise of your conviction and curiosity are a source of joyful amusement.
I hope you are always as confident in your beliefs as you are in your boundaries, but that you will invite opportunities to exercise greater humility and generosity that you might better enjoy the humor and wisdom of fallibility.
Love, Mom
to my daughter
July 9, 2014 § 2 Comments
Lessons occur in the most unexceptional moments. This afternoon your dentist paused over a tooth, exercising a moment’s uncertainty and demonstrating caution. Thoroughly and unceremoniously he gathered information and shared options in words that drifted over your head, but left a weight on your shoulders.
Standing just behind the dentist you looked away while turning toward our conversation. Appealing to your curious nature I invited you to explore your x-ray and asked the dentist to explain the image. You listened without interruption, but held your questions for the privacy of the hallway as we made our way home.
Beneath the darkest corners of your worries was a light filling in the shape of your fear. Questions create space for comfort, they lend reassurance; clearing the way for comprehension and greater care.
Sometimes fear and ignorance intimidate us into quiet acceptance or stubborn avoidance; we hurry through empty motions and suffocate our voice. Ask questions, gather information, and welcome choices. Never allow what you do not understand to inform your actions or your fear to silence an opportunity to learn.
Love, Mom
holding a memory
July 7, 2014 § 2 Comments
If I could hold time between my hands, tangling the past into a gesture of hope to carry close each day, I would keep this weekend near. Traveling to a place unbound by past experiences I found beautiful fragments of both children’s spirit waiting to be captured. Surrounded by ancient trees and nestled in thoughtful details, I curved inward and looked outward, seeing my children more clearly against the novelty of the unknown.
My daughter’s joy was saddled somewhere between horseback and nightfall. I loved the sight of her, dressed up and hair down, chasing fireflies unhindered by the suggestion of opulence in the cobblestone paths and ornate indulgences of her surroundings. She gathered details with the same attention she charted the path of light twinkling between shades of evening, drawing our eyes to delights unseen.
If my daughter’s joy twirled in the air like the tail of a kite weaving fluidly between moments, then her brother’s bliss was marked by the noisy clamoring of fireworks disrupting a quieter contentment and lending cheer.
My son’s joy was spontaneous, he leapt into celebrations enthusiastically absorbing each experience. The child I so often guard against the unknown and lead through social expectations charted a path of independence and community. I marveled as he welcomed each opportunity to engage with his surroundings, moving confidently through activities unhindered by doubt.
These gifts, recognizing beauty in overlooked details and embracing new experiences, are the keepsakes of character I most wish to keep present as I unpack the clutter of vacation. A treasure of perspective illuminating joy.
