to my daughter
May 21, 2014 § 4 Comments
Some days busyness blurs the best of intentions and my words get lost in thought. This place has become a safe haven for memories and musings, still the message is lost if they linger unshared. How many times do we save our words for another time, only to lose our opportunity?
This month your father and I met with administrators, educators, and support staff to discuss your academic progress and outline support for the coming school year. While some measure ability in charts and graphs, your father and I look to anecdotes that illustrate character.
I wish you could see how quickly your name lends smiles and your effort informs ability. The inconsistency of your performance is matched only by your steadfast determination; the space between struggle and accomplishment a picture of possibility.
This year you begged to step outside certain services, eager to stand among your peers. You spoke with such conviction that your father and I carried your request in writing so that your words might mold our goals and honor your ambitions. In patient penmanship you asked each of us to demonstrate faith in something unmeasurable and made us happy conspirators to your choices.
Independent and brave, stubborn and sincere; you are the architect of your dreams. I could not be more proud to be the messenger of your story.
Love, Mom
to my daughter
April 29, 2014 § 5 Comments
Last Friday we paused in our leisurely habits for your daddy daughter dance. Despite the grand theme that suggested more mature expressions of glamour, I held firmly to simpler wishes. It would have been so easy to masquerade you as a young woman, but there is still so much little girl in the balance of your experience and I guard this blessing least you grow too quickly beyond the innocence of this moment.
You are young enough still to seek my counsel, but old enough to push against my authority toward independence. My direction comes masked as a suggestion easily manipulated into your choice. Each selection, from shoes to dress, were an exercise in will and an experiment in self. We danced around subjects of maturity and cost, image and independence. I created boundaries to center you in practical details while lending you freedom enough to make choices that reflect your creativity.
I see so many young girls gathered into early expectations of grandeur. Little girls hidden beneath costumes of maturity or delighting in extravagances so impractical in their excess that they unwittingly create an impossible standard. I hope that you will continue to find joy in less, even in exceptional moments of celebration.
In as much as this was an evening to share with your father, I cherished our time together in preparation. The simplicity of our dining room manicure, the faint hue of your polish little more than a suggestion as you outlined your excitement. I silently applauded your decision to leave your hair to fall comfortably rather than endeavor to confine its bulk into something severe and took care as you let me untangle the day’s knots.
As the time came to dress, I smiled at the silver ballet flats whose sparkle was reminiscent of your toddler toes hidden in ruby, red slippers; the trail of glitter highlighting your path of play. When you unraveled strings of jewelry and dismissed the weight of a corsage for the luxury of white gloves, I saw again images of little girl dress-up accessories mismatched amidst everyday attire.
Watching your walk on your father’s arm I celebrated the blend of innocence and budding maturity in the collection of your choices. Part tomboy and part princess; ever my little girl.
Love, Mom
one minute
March 24, 2014 § 12 Comments
In the bustle of our morning busyness, between the sleepy progress of breakfast and the choreographed chaos of chauffeuring my children in different directions, I found myself stranded among fleeting minutes. Moving through the practiced efficiency of routine goodbyes I weighed unspoken words against lost opportunities in search of extra time.
On a whim, I asked my daughter for one minute; inviting her to watch the numbers guarding her time so long as she lent me her ears. The spontaneity of my request and my daughter’s unanticipated approval prevented a more calculated message. Instead my words tumbled one over another, clumsily but well-intentioned.
I told my daughter I do not know how not to worry and apologized in advance for all the words that come out wrong. I predicted personal failings in the imperfect practice of mothering and begged patience with errors of ignorance, promising only love. I set aside all the warnings and questions that whispered of my worries, finding my daughter’s eyes no longer measuring the time between us.
Then, I let go of things unsaid for the promise of one minute more and held my little girl close.
to my daughter
March 22, 2014 § 2 Comments
This new struggle that shadows your days, the quiet companion that undermines your confidence and disrupts your joy, is never far from my thoughts. I wonder at its shapeless form and curiously inventory our days for clues to its cause.
Your ghost is unfamiliar to me, but the secrecy you cloak your struggle in betrays your worries. False reassurances of I’m okay rattle noisily like a silent alarm within my heart.
I cannot call out your demons without a name, so I peer into the darkness trying to find the unguarded entrance to your thoughts that invites this companion’s burden. Like the boogeyman that lingers only in our dreams, I want to dispel the power that resides in silence.
Know this, no one can suffer the burden of fear and worry alone; these are companions meant to be shared with trust and love. Giving voice and naming our challenges gives us the power of choice and diffuses the burden of shame. Your strength is greater in vulnerability and your courage fortified in self-worth.
In the morning, just before you wake to the memory of your worries, I see the peaceful reprieve of your sleep and wish that today you will shine light into the corners you keep so well guarded. So wake up, Sweet Girl, and feel the warmth of Spring’s sunshine and the promise of this day. Love, Mom
Keep your face always toward the sunshine – and shadows will fall behind you. ~Walt Whitman
to my daughter
February 13, 2014 § 4 Comments
This week you found yourself in the middle of a mistake, one you could not hide from and wore with naked vulnerability. Self conscious you held your chin up and navigated your days with grace; you shared your worries with a friend, giving trust and demonstrating faith; you spoke up for other children even when it would have been easier to keep quiet and bask in the silence. You chased each day’s joy despite an uncomfortable companion and I am in awe of the quiet strength that informed your choices. Love you.
Mom
life line
February 1, 2014 § 2 Comments
A language of sincerity and self; a line that begins from a place deep within moving silently into the world, uncensored expression and unbridled curiosity. This is what I see each time my daughter breaths art into a single line, a brave and certain endeavor with an unapologetically bold pen stroke. A life line that gives form to thoughts and weighs the intangible between paper and pen.
lost in time
January 30, 2014 § 5 Comments
This morning my daughter nestled on the stairway, dressed for the day but hidden beneath a tangled curtain of hair; shoulders draped over a paperback book and tiptoes curling her frame against the hands of time. My mind on the clock, but heart in my throat, I left her to linger over the last pages of her story in the dwindling minutes before school; each of us lost to a moment in time.
me too
January 13, 2014 § 16 Comments
Nose to nose, sandwiched between stuffed animals and partially read books, I curled into my daughter’s company as she fought her racing thoughts to follow her dreams toward sleep. Side by side she whispered into the dark: I want to fall asleep by myself so that you will think I am big and feel proud of me, but secretly I wish I could stay small so that you wouldn’t have to leave.
And so I stayed until sleep stole her company, proud of the uninhibited honesty that accompanies these stolen moments and thinking all the while:
Me too.
choosing & claiming
January 2, 2014 § 4 Comments
Naming the New Year has become a tradition that travels over miles and connects me in spirit to the company of an old friend; a kindred soul who similarly seeks inspiration and growth in personal expression. Each year we gift the New Year a name that weighs our consciousness in accountability for our hopes, creates momentum with positive intention, and lends direction with clarity of perspective. It is an exercise created by Ali Edwards who crafted a movement of inspiration and a community of creativity around One Little Word.
This marks my third year naming the New Year. In the beginning the experience of choosing a word was intimate to my sense of self. My first year was a gift of certainty that arrived from recognizing potential in my struggle against uncertainty. In pledging to keep an open mind I embraced the word Open to guide me in my actions as I welcomed a year marked by change. The second year my word came from a place deep within and I could not shake its presence; Be formed on my tongue effortlessly inviting a stillness of presence that served me well this past year in moments of perseverance. This year my word came in my daughter’s voice, filling the silence with Joy.
Let me back up a moment to honor the story behind choosing and claiming this year’s word. In December I began exploring words, eventually testing possible choices in carefully constructed lists hoping to stumble upon a word that would speak to my heart. Unhurried I accepted the silence and revisited past words to map my experience. I immediately recognized themes of presence in past choices that honor my natural tendency toward reflection. In an effort to challenge myself with a new path I labored lovingly over a list of unfamiliar words, seeking the proverbial needle in the haystack. In the quiet morning hours on the last day of the past year, I read each word aloud sounding out a sense of self. I listed words I wanted to claim, beautiful words and uncomfortable words. On the eve of the New Year there was no one singular word that spoke to me.
Desperate and dutiful to the timeliness of this endeavor I looked to my family for inspiration. My husband sifted through words patiently and thoughtfully, choosing Embrace. The word resonated with familiarity and I pushed against its comfort. My daughter, without pause, said Joyful. In as much as I celebrated her perspective the word felt false in its exuberance. The certainty of my daughter’s voice was matched in equal measure by my unspoken uncertainty, but the disparity between our perspectives gifted me space to invite Joy to play a greater role in the year to come.
Embracing Joy felt like upending a box of crayons onto white paper and so I grabbed my pen and scribbled it against the emptiness of the New Year. My daughter’s voice spelling out a new challenge.
to want for
December 29, 2013 § 8 Comments
This holiday my favorite gift was the product of disappointment. It began when my daughter first drafted a letter to Santa asking for a pet bunny. Her words were carefully drawn and conscientiously void of spelling errors; she elaborated over important details and wrapped her request in an elegantly fashioned envelope that was sealed with faith in magic.
At my first opportunity to interfere with her wish I consciously held each rational word to myself. It would have been simple to undermine her request and direct her to a more attainable dream, but the moment begged silence in place of reason; instead I dwelled on the accomplishment between the lines of her letter. The clarity of her perfectly formed letters and tidy punctuation.
The letter itself is a time capsule of my daughter’s dreams and literacy. Gone were the hurried, phonetic scribbles adorned with artwork that had always marked her creative individuality and youth. In place was a more mature and lovingly intentional letter that bound us to a new moment in time.
Throughout the month of December my daughter’s anticipation increased in proportion to each calendar day. On the eve of Christmas morning, I was as quiet in my doubt as my daughter was joyful in her faith. My sleep was interrupted with my daughter’s dreams and I wished fervently for the impossible to delay disappointment.
Christmas morning a toy bunny sat motionless beside the tree and a letter of explanation rested beside the lovingly fashioned treats that had been sampled in our sleep. I gauged my daughter’s reaction through the camera lens, looking for signs of her response.
The note simply stated the practicalities of traveling across the world with an animal unsuited for extreme weather while acknowledging my daughter’s maturity. Somewhere between the lines of explanation I saw the first light of a most genuinely pleased smile spark behind my daughter’s eyes.
When she looked up it was with joy and content resignation to say: It is enough that he understood. It was a gift that was born of innocence and maturity, faith and frustration; a moment I could not singlehandedly purchase or craft and a culmination of days unorchestrated but informed by the promise of wishing without the certainty of knowing.
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