I’ve been feeling particularly close to, raw towards, and intensely about Grace lately. Last month she started second grade in the same building where I went to second grade. I realized today that that autumn, of second grade, is really when my memories begin. We had just moved back to the States from Paris, and I started a new school (where both Grace and Whit go now). I can see the picture in my head, blurred with time as it is: Hilary and I standing side by side, boxy metal lunchboxes in our hands, knee socks, crooked pigtails (me) and a cloud of red curls (her), shy smiles revealing our nerves.
Grace is, right now, living the weeks where my own childhood began. No wonder I feel the identification that has always marked our relationship even more powerfully than usual. She’s about to turn eight, officially growing out of early childhood, and she is to be tiptoeing into new, complicated territory. I feel the push-pull of her desire, the way that the urge to experiment and grow oscillates back and forth with the wish to sink back into the familiar, the known, the past. I sense that the yawning future both inspires and intimidates her.
It’s not a secret that Matt named Grace. Not a secret that Grace was not, in truth, my first choice name. And yet … how she has embodied grace for me, even from the very very rocky beginnings. I realize, of course, that most parents with a child named Grace feel this way.
I think about grace all the time, trying to understand exactly what it is. It’s a word our culture uses a lot. What does it really mean? For me grace is a safety net, a soft landing, a feeling that is like an exhale: everything will be okay. It’s a sense of safety that washes over me right when I feel I might fly into a million glittering, jagged pieces. Every single time I try to define it, I come back, over and over, to my own grace, Grace. Capitalize the word in Anne Lamott’s famous quote and you could be talking about my daughter and her effect on me. Her impact, whose profundity I instinctively understand even though its brilliant colors have hardly even begun to unfurl.
I do not at all understand the mystery of grace, only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us. (Anne Lamott)
Oh that quote from Anne Lamott is priceless. A bit of grace itself, you know? I, too, have been thinking a lot about grace lately. Trying to become more conscious of where it is in my life, how it surrounds us all, remembering bits and pieces of the stories of my life where grace has delivered me–ultimately–to where I am now.
Yeah, the thoughts are so BIG I can barely even explain them.
Lovely post, L.
Oh, what a beautiful post. I can relate so much – Greta just turned 8 and it stirred up all the same feelings for me.
I love how you describe grace (and I love that quote by Anne Lamott, too). I’m facing some fears today, getting out of my comfort zone, and this post brought me right back to center.
Thank you.
-Ellie
I love this post on Grace and grace. I personally love the name. I often think about grace in my own life–connected to love, kindness, and forgiveness. Hope she begins to feel more connected, too. xo
Sweet post. 8 is a great age; you are right to be savoring it. (Love the knee socks reference — there’s a fashion trend I would love to see come back. I used to adore my knee socks, even though they fell down **all the time.**)
Lovely portrait of your lovely daughter–capturing her right now, as she is in this very moment and never will be again.
It is a crude thing to say, but it’s as if you just picked a scab I’d forgotten. The crashing of moments here as my girls ping between milestones, reached a deafening roar as we attended as school event for our oldest and our sweet middle daughter Ave came to me and placed her first lost tooth in my hand, “It came out.” She could as easily have been speaking of my heart.
Beautiful, your Grace.
This is amazing. You have totally put into words my relationship with my oldest. It’s so hard – they are so OURS – and yet, they are their own thing, which becomes more apparent every year. Thank you for your eloquence on these clunky feelings of mine!
I am in tears. My daughter’s name is Grace. And I always say I never knew grace until I had her. And it’s true. The quote is true as well.
My Grace is 5, and every day I look at her and think “Oh, I remember that age.” And I want so badly for her to have good memories…I don’t want her to remember her mother and father getting divorced.
Thank you for your beautiful post.
(Your Grace is lovely!)
I find that our kids do indeed drag us back through our own childhoods, dredging up all sorts of forgotten-until-now experiences. Perhaps some of your struggles within during the first seven years will open out into terrain you at least have more conscious awareness of… and this helps us differentiate our experience from that of our children. It’s strange how much they are of us, our kids, and at the same time how different they ultimately are from us.
Grace may not leave us where she finds us, but it can be a bumpy and confusing ride (at least it has for me). Namaste
The first lost tooth – and every one since then – slayed me. I just crumbled. Now I look at Whit’s tiny chiclet teeth and realize I have to prepare for their loss too. An aside, in the Christmas card injury category: I do not recommend forgetting to have the tooth fairy come. No, I do not recommend that at all
Lovely portrait of grace and of your Grace. Anne Lamott is my writing hero.