to my children
June 14, 2015 § 2 Comments
Last Wednesday we piled into the car for a short drive up the street. The weather lately has been uncooperative, wet and cool then hot and humid. I was thinking mostly of the clouds as we drove the short distance, my eyes on the blue patches of sky second guessing the decision to drive; we might have walked after all, but then I was also already planning what we might need to do later.
It was in arriving that I lost track of all the mundane thoughts that had only moments before held my attention. Time stood still as years chased old memories around a tiny bundle of hope swathed in love. I can’t recall the last time I held such a new life or when the memory of your own infancy felt so tangible against the impossibility of your adolescence.
Sometimes magic sneaks up on us in plain sight.
Memories tumbled unbidden of days lost to old photographs and fractured reminiscing. It seemed a trick of sentiment that I could recall days long past with the clarity of yesterday even as you leaned curiously over the tiny sleeping form who fascinated us with content irreverence for our fussing. My children bent tenderly in respectful fascination over another’s miracle.
How quickly the years have slipped from the moment beneath my feet. Time is a funny measure of life, memories changing the weight of minutes into something we cannot so easily define.
Love, Mom
measure of joy
June 1, 2014 § 5 Comments
I am cautious in my exuberance. Academic accomplishments are celebrated with words of appreciation rather than gatherings or gifts. I try to center my attention on the progress of effort over accomplishment; careful not to foster an expectation of grandeur in my children’s minds. There have been so many moments of carefully contrived simplicity that I have begun to wonder if I am undermining the magic of more.
Recently I caught myself rebuffing the formal activities thoughtfully coordinated by my son’s middle school to celebrate graduation; a term I hold with reverence as an accomplishment better reserved for high school and college. The energy I exerted pushing against the tide of anticipation was exhausting and contradictory to the spirit with which I embrace spontaneous moments of celebration for everyday measures of joy.
I was tallying gestures of celebration in place of gratitude for countless experiences that lent immeasurable growth. These past three years have been substantial and this ending leaves a legacy of friendship and accomplishment far greater than academic markers. We have navigated crises with strangers who became friends and we have grown collectively into readiness for new challenges.
I cannot celebrate friendship so mildly for there is no greater gift. As we move through the celebration and ceremony of the coming week I am embracing with unmeasured exuberance the quiet enduring blessing of our community of friends and this chapter in our story. More words of thanks, more excuses to gather in celebration, more moments of appreciation for gifts that appear in our lives wrapped in everyday experiences.
to my son
April 30, 2014 § 2 Comments
While your sister twirled toward an evening with dad, last Friday we ventured out for air scavenging the lingering hours of the spring day for food and conversation. These companionable moments, just the two of us, are a happy indulgence.
On this occasion I centered my attention in celebration of a recent increase in your independence. I pelted you with compliments and, to my surprise, you became quiet. As I pushed forward, into the silence, with saccharin expressions of thankful exuberance you retreated further. Chasing your silence with the noise of my joy I tried to retract you from your corner until your words stilled me.
You explained that the more I spoke of your success, the more you felt suffocated by the uncertain momentum of your accomplishments. Initially I baulked at the suggestion that my praise might undermine your progress. It was only when I set aside the filter of my hopes as your mother that I could more clearly see the honesty in your teenage confession. In your vulnerable forthrightness, you translated a subtext of judgement that belied my contentment.
Rather than celebrating your accomplishment you wanted to stand simply in a place of self-awareness. Under your breath, almost to yourself, you confessed it felt good to be productive. This was my favorite moment, the casually measured acquiescence of your accomplishment. The greater joy is not the pride of others, but pride in self untethered to other’s expectations.
Love, Mom
you & me
April 4, 2013 § Leave a comment
We build a home to keep us safe, make room for memories, and gather love among us. We move with dancers’ familiarity between the floors and rooms, wordlessly weighing ourselves in rituals of a life shared. There have been days entire conversations transpired in smiles over the tops of our children’s heads between meals, work, errands, and play. Today I have been looking for a quiet corner to share, planning our temporary escape; minutes stacked against the clock to hold open a moment untethered to the life we built to nurture the love we share. A date among calendar days of courtship and companionship, in parenthood and partnership.
magic
April 1, 2013 § Leave a comment
Lately I am distracted by a sense of something immediately foreign and familiar resonating in the recesses of my mind. Neither place nor person it is simply an uncertain knowing. Too grand to capture with words and too small to outline with shape, there is an unmistakable magic in this moment and I am caught, enraptured, in its spell.
time keeper
March 10, 2013 § Leave a comment
This day comes predictably unexpected each year. The familiarity of winding time into the future makes me wistful for a mysterious unknown; in between quiet predictable patterns of my morning routine I long for the paused possibility that never was and yet always is. I have lost nothing and still the missing minutes stretch infinitely in my mind distracting me with whispers of What if?
friend.ing
September 1, 2012 § Leave a comment
There is something unquestionably tempting about traveling across years and miles to connect with friends courtesy of a click. This past week I confronted pieces of myself, insecurities exaggerated by uncertainties, online.
I won’t add to the humility of my momentary insanity by elaborating on the absurdity of my self-induced pity party, or the panicked plea for reassurance. Suffice to say the novelty of social networking began to blur into something generically personal. In a moment not unlike a curiously distorted fun house mirror, I looked deeper into the odd representation for clarity.
I am taking a break from adding friends, maintaining status updates, and commenting on every post in exchange for holding more tightly to those who know the sound of my laughter. I want to have private conversations in person and write letters to those whose paths wind too far outside the routines of my days. There is nothing novel in this sharing, only a gentle reminder to myself that the moments that become memories are shared, friendship is written on our hearts not our walls.
PostScript
March 2, 2012 § Leave a comment
Yesterday I wanted to capture a promise to my son and take ownership of a challenge. I try to teach my children that with each difficulty we make a choice as to whether we will be victims or victors.
This morning is cool and rainy; the sky is gray, but my heart is full of sunshine. My children are home today while their teachers work in empty classrooms. I am nesting to the sounds of my children playing, their company and running commentary a wonderful reminder of what matters most.
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