Grace

Poetry and blue sky

Yesterday, we went to Walden.  As you know if you’ve been reading for any length of time, this is a very special place for Grace, Whit, and me, and we like to go year-round.  Every summer we have a morning swim there, and we also like to go in the fall, winter or spring, to walk around the often-deserted pond.  In fact, I’d go so far as to say that for us (and, I know, for millions of others), Walden is holy.

We woke up to an empty Sunday.  What a divine privilege these wide-open days are.  I know that now that I can sense their running through the hourglass of years.  We had a quick breakfast, Whit was whining, Grace was annoyed at something, Matt was reluctant, but I kept us moving and all four of us headed west.

IMG_5123The path was iced-over and slippery when we took off around the pond.  Grace and Whit scampered ahead, knowing their way around now, exploring up and down the snowy hillsides that arc away from the pond.  IMG_5091

The beach was snowy and the pond was frozen completely solid.  We arrived at the site of Thoreau’s house, where the pile of rocks, usually studded with cairns, was covered with snow.  I read the famous lines that I know by heart under my breath, watching my children climbing on the pile of snow marking where the writer had lived, feeling the familiar sense of tightness in my chest and hot tears in my eyes.  Yes, this: to live deliberately.  This: to learn what life has to teach.

So many of those lessons are to be found in the achingly blue sky, the brilliant white snow, the tangible peace in the air, the evocative lines of poetry.  There are so many lessons about life right here in nature, and I recalled again how powerful it is to simply be in the world, to look and listen and breathe, a lesson I keep learning over and over again.

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By the time we’d circled the pond and come back to where we started we all had pink cheeks and calmer hearts.  As it always does, Walden had worked its particular, mysterious magic on all four of us.  The poetry and the blue sky had soaked through our pores, through our spirits, and we were reminded of what it is to live this life.

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And I lagged behind my family, watching them walk away, standing on the frozen beach and gazing at that unbelievable, outrageous blue.  This beautiful world.

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An elegy to what was and a love letter to what is.

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I have never been particularly maternal, I never babysat, and I never daydreamed of the day I would have my own children. I was as surprised as anyone, then, when I realized that motherhood was the love affair of my life, the subject that found me, the role that made everything else in my life make (at least some) sense.  After Grace and I made it through months of colic (hers but also, I’m pretty sure, mine) and a dark year, we entered a period that I think of now as what Laura Ingalls Wilder called the happy golden years.

But lately, I am in a new season of motherhood.  At first there were isolated events, rolled eyes and crossed arms, flares of aggravation I did not understand.   These moments, each on their own as small as a speck of light in a wide night sky, came together into a constellation that was eventually impossible to ignore.  Something is changing.  Something is different.

For a long time I worried that my days with Grace at home would never end.  I waded through her dark and sleepless first months for what felt like an eternity.  Then, truthfully, I rejoiced that that time had ended.  We dove into the happy hours of early childhood, celebrating all the things we could do together – swimming, tennis, reading, adventures. Grace (and her brother) was my favorite companion and I was hers.  And now, suddenly, the end of something is undeniably in sight.  It reminds me our annual summer trip to the White Mountains: we hike for what seems like forever in the trees and are always startled when, all at once, the summit comes into view.

Grace’s years at home with me are well over halfway done.  The time of me being her favorite person, of my company always being her first choice, are surely almost completely over.  I am so keenly aware of how numbered these days are that I can barely think of anything else.  It is not an exaggeration to say that my every experience is filtered through the prism of time’s passage.

I have said goodbye to sippy cups and diapers and sleep schedules and baby food and cribs and high chairs and even, mostly, to carseats.  I have welcomed yoga pants that I sometimes mistake for my own when I’m folding laundry, a riot of peace sign patterned sheets and towels, a closed bedroom door, and handwritten postcards home from sleep-away camp.

I don’t worry about SIDS anymore, or about whether I’m producing enough milk, or about putting a baby to bed slightly awake so she doesn’t get used to falling asleep in my arms.  Instead I worry about Facebook, and friends who have cell phones, and when it’s ok to get her ears pierced, and the insidious approach of eating disorders and body image issues.

The predominant emotion of this time, as Grace embarks upon the vital transition from child to young adult and to an autonomous and independent sense of self, is wonder.  Wonder upon wonder, so many layers I have lost count: there is awe, fear, and astonishment, and also an endless list of questions.  I gaze at my daughter, coltishly tall, lean, all angles and long planes, and wonder where the last 10 years went.  It is not hard to close my eyes and imagine that she is still the rotund baby or chubby toddler that she was just moments ago.  At the same time I can see the young woman she is rapidly becoming in her mahogany eyes.  And there are so many things I wonder about: separation, mood swings, puberty, boys, technology, school pressures, body image, and more.

I’m reminded now and then of the fears and concerns that flummoxed me when Grace was an infant.  The world shifted more then, when I brought home a crying newborn, but this transition feels second only to that.  Then as now, I’m guided by only two things: love and instinct.

Overnight we’ve gone from a world where a never-ending ribbon of days unfurled in front of us, so many they overwhelmed me, to one where every moment feels finite, numbered, and, as a result, almost unbearably precious.  It feels like as soon as I figured out how to truly love being a mother with children at home, it’s almost over.  More and more, I feel the tension between holding on and letting go.  I want to help Grace find her footing in the uncertain terrain of adolescence, but I never expected it to be so bittersweet.

And all I know what to do as we move into this new season is to pay attention, to look and listen and write it down.  Everything I write, everything I live, an elegy to what was and a love letter to what is.

This post originally appeared on the Huffington Post.

They make me a better person

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Veteran’s Day was  one of those days fraught with the potential for yelling.  The kids didn’t have school, but I had to work.  How difficult would it be to cram my job into a few hours so that I could be present to and with them for the others?  I managed to clear a couple of hours in the morning.  We went to paint pottery, specifically ornaments for the grandparents.

The painting was somewhat frustrating, and Whit had a hard time with the small, detailed work of writing his name with a paintbrush.  We muddled through, though, and after a while it was time to go.  Grace and Whit cleaned up while I took our painted ornaments to the kiln pile.  The children were picking out lollipops and I was paying when I noticed that our table was still strewn with paper towels, half-filled water cups, and a wet paint brush.  Frustrated, I went to clean off the table.

As we walked out of the store, I vented my dismay at Grace and Whit.  I told them sternly that I was disappointed.  And then Grace, not looking, stepped into the busy street as cars approached.  I yelped and grabbed her arm, panicked.  The morning’s happy mood disintegrated with lightning speed.  As we drove home toxic clouds of aggravation filled the car.   Suddenly I was in a terrible mood.  Isn’t it amazing how fast things can change?  In both directions, indeed.

We got home and I stalked upstairs to my desk.  Intellectually, I knew I had overreacted but I was prickling all over and felt overwhelmed with irritation and frustration.  I answered work emails in silence.  I heard Whit puttering with the Legos in the other room.  After a solid twenty  minutes he crept in and offered me a green flower made out of Legos and a hand-written note.

Dear Mummy,
I love you more than Legos and books combined.  I hope you know I’m sorry for not helping you clean up. Love Whit

I began to bawl. This is what love is, I thought.

I asked him to come into my office and he did, gingerly.  I pulled him onto my lap, which is awkward now because he is so long.  I buried my head in his shoulder, crying.  I apologized, and after a few minutes we went down to Grace’s room.  She too had written me an apology.  I sat on her bed, a child on each side of me, tears running down my face.  I told them I was sorry.  I told them I had overreacted and I had been wrong.  “The two of you make me a better person,” I said, and I meant it.  I want to be worth of their devotion, their faith, their love.  The redemptive power of their willingness to abide with me, even when I am wretched, was tangible in the room.

“Should we start this day over?” Grace asked.

“No, I don’t think so.  It was a really nice day until the last hour. Maybe we should just erase an hour,” Whit offered.  I nodded.

We decided to go out to get burritos and as we drove we talked about forgiveness and the ability to move on.  I’ve told them many times, and I firmly believe, that this – the ability to put something behind you, to say I’m sorry and mean it, to start fresh – is one of the true keys to happiness.  It is unrealistic to imagine that we won’t all have bad days, with yelling and irritation and black moods.  But being able to roll through those, devotion and affection intact, to forgive and to move on?

That is where true love lives.

Adventures big and small

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It is important to me to share adventures with Grace and Whit.  That’s among the things I want most for them.  I want them to have big adventures, and to see the world.  I also want them to have small adventures.  We did the trapeze a few years ago and learned to fly.  We have volunteered at soup kitchens, had picnics in local parks, and danced on a beach off-season.

This past weekend’s adventure was went rock climbing at Brooklyn Boulders in Somerville.  We tried top-roping, self-belaying, and bouldering.  I was struck by how fearless Grace and Whit were.  Whit struggled on one wall, and what impressed me most was his tenacity; he would not give up.  I kept yelling up that he could come down if he wanted and he finally hollered down that I should stop saying that because he wasn’t coming down until he made it to the top.

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Grace was a natural.  She scaled the wall so quickly and with such ease that our (wonderful) instructor asked me if she’d climbed before.  Um, at a birthday party, maybe once?  She loved it and I could see that climbing took advantage of her natural balance, flexibility, and courage.  It was great to see.

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The scariest experience of the day was coming down from the self-belay wall.  To do that, you had to lean back and trust that the belay rope would catch your weight.  Matt and Whit did that with little drama.  Grace and I hesitated longer.  When she finally made what is effectively a trust fall, she came down gracefully.  I bounced off the wall with significantly less elegance but made it down in one piece.

We had an absolutely marvelous morning.  I loved seeing Grace and Whit be brave, and push themselves, and, literally, climb to the sky.  It felt like exercise, and adventure, and a wonderfully non-competitive, collaborative family experience.

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Brooklyn Boulders is an impressive facility.  There are 25,000 square feet of climbing wall, as well as workspaces, exercise rooms, and free wi-fi.  The spirit of camaraderie that defines the climbing community is tangible in the airy space with soaring ceilings.  I am often dismayed by how negatively competition in kids’ sports (and lives in general) can manifest, and climbing seems like a powerful antidote to that.

A day pass to Brooklyn Boulders includes access to several yoga classes, the weight rooms, and all the climbing walls.  You could sit in one of a few different work spaces, watching the climbing or working with access to wi-fi.  Every single person we met there was, without exception, friendly and warm and didn’t make us feel like the awkward middle-aged people who didn’t know how to put on their harnesses we are.

We’ll definitely be going back.  Whit wants to do his birthday party there, and Grace is considering climbing on a weekly basis.

For full disclosure, Brooklyn Boulders provided us with a family belay session free of charge.  All opinions here, however, are my own, and the extravagantly positive opinion I have of the facility and staff is completely genuine.

The power of story, and the importance of giving good book recommendations

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These days, it seems like I cross a threshold every day with my children.  Last this, first that, yes, yes, and yes.

This summer, for the first time, Grace began recommending books to me.  First, she suggested that I read Wonder by R.J. Palacio.  I was resistant (I don’t know why) and she kept insisting that I’d love it.  Finally I read it.  I loved it.  We talked about it at length and still refer to Auggie all the time.

This month, both Grace and Whit recommended that I read The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate.  I read it.  I loved it.  All three of us talked about it, and I applauded them for suggesting to me such a great book (books, in the case of Grace).

And last week we had a long conversation about books.  About what we love and what we don’t and why certain books really appeal to certain people.  I told them that the ability to recommend a good book to someone else is a quality I very much appreciate in a friend, and something I was proud to see that they were both developing.  I also told them that it’s one of the things I love most, when others ask me for book suggestions.

It’s not a secret that I love to read.  I can’t even count how many posts I’ve written about books, reading, quotes, authors.  When I enumerated the ten things I most wanted Grace to know when she turned ten, one of them was “reading is essential.”  And for me, it is.  So part of my pride when Grace and Whit suggest books to me is that I know they too are finding this passionate attachment to the world of literature.

But it’s more than that, too.  It’s about the desire to share good books and the wish to make sure powerful words and stories are read by as many people as possible.  Any evidence that my children are beginning to understand the importance and value of stories makes me happy.  As Dorothy Allison says in Two or Three Things I Know For Sure:

Two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is that to go on living I have to tell stories, that stories are the one sure way I know to touch the heart and change the world.

I share this conviction.  And when people ask me for a book recommendation, I feel like I’m sharing this belief in a small way.  So it makes me happier than I can express to see my children beginning to do the same.

Do you believe in the story?  Do you like to suggest books to other people?  What are you reading right now?