Is it possible that Grace has inherited her godmother’s legs (and feet)? All I can say, Gracie, is you had better hope so: you’ll be super psyched if that is true!
Grace
Swimming alone
Today’s Motherlode post is a guest post by Lydia Denworth about how the line between overprotection and appropriate risk shifts over time. Lydia’s story is a little more charged than some, because her son has moderate to severe hearing loss that a head injury could tip into full-blown deafness.
I think her essay about still choosing not to wrap her child in cotton wool and a 24/7 helmet is brave and honest. This is something I think about all the time with Grace and Whit, and I’m always looking for small ways to allow them to feel masterful and independent. Today it was letting Grace swim to the raft in the ocean by herself. She’s done it with me and with Matt more than once, but today she went alone. She was eager to do it. The lifeguard and I were both watching. She swam there with ease, climbed onto the raft, and her incandescent smile was visible all the way from the beach.
September 1, 2009
Annual trip to Water Wizz this morning. Grace, Whit and I were, as usual, about 15 minutes early. So we sat in the car, with the heat on. Note: summer vacation in September has some drawbacks. Especially at a water park. We met Clem, Campbell, and their father for some sliding fun. First up was the Lazy River which entails drifting around a circuitous circle, being occasionally drenched with waterfalls. Sounds great except it was freezing cold. Literally my teeth were chattering. Next up was the slide you see above. All four kids (ages 7, 6, 5, and 4) went down it. I had to go first, and Whit was right behind me. He came down backwards and flipped upside down in the landing pool. His face when he came up was absolutely priceless. Unsurprisingly, this first slide was his last of the day.
Clem shared Whit’s dislike of the slides, so the three of us took the mellower route. We were playing at Pirate Cove (basically a foot of ice cold water and a pirate-themed jungle gym, with occasional waterfalls – sense a theme here?) when Whit wiped out and skinned the bejeezus out of his elbow. He fell in Vermont, too, successfully completing a five-point skin: literally, both elbows, both knees, and his forehead. I didn’t see the fall but I can only imagine he took flight like Superman before coming abruptly back to earth. Anyway, today’s skin was a knee and an elbow and he was bleeding enough that they rushed me to the First Aid shack.
A couple of huge band-aids and we were back in business. By noon everybody was freezing cold and whiny and outright exhausted. I took Grace and Whit home for macaroni and cheese. Things went steeply downhill here. They were bickering over the screen door, with Whit wanting it wide open and Grace upset by this because it made the hummingbird feeder drip. There were raised voices, okay, fine, including mine. Then they were arguing over the macaroni and cheese box. Grace would not let Whit hold it. Which is, apparently, an offense worth biting over.
Which he did. I was at the stove when I heard Grace’s blood-curdling scream. I turned and she was wailing, “Whit bit me!” with a thorougly appropriate mix of indignation and horror. Whit saw my face and immediately started muttering, “I’m sorry, Mummy, I’m sorry!” I dealt with him in no uncertain terms and pretty soon all three of us were crying. I asked Whit to apologize to Grace, and he did, and she made me cry tears of pride over those of frustration and exhaustion when she said, totally sincerely, “I accept your apology, Whitty.” After a speedy lunch everybody went to their rooms for rest and screens of all kinds (computer, DVD player, old iphone).
The afternoon was mellow and we had dinner with the friends of Water Wizz (and last night) at a great old-fashioned pizza parlor in Onset. The food was great and the children had fun playing with the video games and pinball machines. There was ice cream afterwards and then it was home for early to bed. Grace was tired as I read to her and, as it had all afternoon and evening, her mood oscillated between surly sass and breakthrough tears.
I finally tucked her into bed, curling up next to her. I brushed her hair back from her forehead and whispered to her about how I loved her no matter what. I apologized for raising my voice and explained that I always loved her, even when I was disappointed with or upset at her behavior. I told her that the thing she did that made me proudest all day long was not going down the crazy black-diamond waterslides (my GOD my child is fearless, in a way I can tell is going to be bad news) but accepting Whit’s apology after he bit her.
I could feel her body relaxing next to me, watch her eyelids growing heavy. She murmured, so quietly I could barely hear her, “Mummy, I feel like I could snuggle with you forever.” My heart ached as tide of tenderness came in to wash out all of the yelling and anger and oh-my-God-I-suck-at-this emotion of the day. It always seems to do that, no matter how rough the day has been. Every day like this I doubt everything about them and myself as a parent, and then it comes, that overwhelming splash of emotion, both fierce and gentle, humbling, inspiring, and comforting me all at once.
Om Nama Shivaya
Last night in yoga class the teacher (wonderful, jivamukti-trained Alanna) spent a while talking about sound, vibrations, e=mc2, listening, and being open to the universe. She asked us to think about someone who could benefit from our being more present, from our listening more carefully. I thought immediately of Grace. No hesitation: her little face with tangly hair falling in her eyes popped into my head.
At the end of practice Alanna turned the lights off and did a little bit of singing with the room lit only by candles. I would not normally describe this as my thing, but somehow I was porous to it last night and found it very moving. We did a call-and-response chant of Om Nama Shivaya (again, not my thing, but Alanna was singing it rather than chanting it, with acoustic guitar accompaniment … really just a hop away from some of my favorite music!). She asked us to put our hands over our heart and to think of the person we had dedicated our practice to. Tears streamed down my face as I imagined Gracie sitting next to me. My awareness of my own limitations was a physical ache, and I felt the desperate desire to be a more present, patient mother for her running through my veins in a visceral way.
I was reminded, then, of an experience I had while pregnant with Grace. When I remembered it I can’t believe I’ve spent so many hours whining about how her name was going to be Eloise. I was 20 weeks pregnant and at a new prenatal yoga class (that I actually never returned to, because there was a little too much breathing through our chakras and not enough downward dog). After a long shivasana, the instructor asked us to “go inside” (what does this mean, really?) and to “feel our baby” (and yes, I rolled my eyes here). We were supposed to listen for a single word, a message from our child, and to share it with the room. I was skeptical and, frankly, trying to figure out how I could leave the room without getting busted. And then this happened: a voice in my head said, clearly, “grace.” Her name has always been Grace.
Incidentally, these two experiences, separated by a wide gulf of years and many, many not-very-spiritual moments, make me think of Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED talk. Yes, I am biased, because I love Elizabeth Gilbert. But still. I find her premise fascinating, and compelling: that creativity should be thought of as an external force that visits us (with frustrating inconsistency) rather than something inherent to an individual. This, she posits, is a way to release some of the pressure to be inspired every single day. She also supports her theory with interesting data points from Big Name Philosophers.
This notion is central to a Philip Pullman’s extraordinary trilogy, His Dark Materials (which I could not recommend more highly). In Pullman’s beautiful books, both quick, enthralling reads and dense explorations of religion, identity, and the soul, children are accompanied by “daemons,” companions who are an external embodiment of their creativity. When we are children, our daemons shift between the shapes of various animals. As adults, they take a firmer form and settle into their final shape. Pullman seems to be claiming that children are comfortable with the fluidity of creativity and identity, and that as we get older this relationship grows more static, the exchange less easy. I find this idea fascinating and it clearly has the same root as Elizabeth Gilbert’s argument about artistic inspiration and whether its locus is internal or external to the artist himself.
If you agree with Gilbert and Pullman, which I think I do, I guess whatever we believe that spirit is visited me last night. And reminded me, in no uncertain terms, that Gracie deserves better from me.