eight and three quarters

watching her in motion is like watching two ostriches do cartwheels - all long legs and arms waving around of their own volition.

long long long feet rest on her flip flops, showing me all the growing that is still to come. three sizes, she grew this school year.  three shoe sizes.  

mosquito bites make a point-to-point map up and down her shins, meeting at the matching bandaids on both knees.

the denim miniskirt, so big she had to tie it on in the fall rides high - almost too high - this summer.  A hand-me-down Hollister t-shirt from her cooler, older neighbor friends up the street has been chosen over all the sweet flowered blouses in her drawer. 

the [finally] long hair meets her shoulders, the summer blonde streaks starting to shimmer throughout - it was carefully brushed this morning. i recognize the calculated nonchalance of hair tucked behind ears Just. So.   instantly, i remember those painful early days of knowing you want to look a certain way, but having no idea how to make it happen.

her smooth cheeks slope over razor-like cheekbones she got from her dad.  i watch the dark brown eyes follow everything that goes on around her, exactly as they did when she was six months old.  even now, so serious, she can't help the way they sparkle with curiosity, with challenge, with imagination.

she folds those knobby knees underneath her as she sits, graceful when she's not thinking about it.  she's completely unaware of my gaze - rare for her these days, with a 3rd grader's budding knowledge of the world's perceptions and judgements.  she is wise after a tough year at school, learned some life lessons far more critical than the second grade curriculum of math facts and reading strategies.

my changeling - changing.  in front of me.  so much the same as the day she was born, and yet ever a new creature in our lives.  inexorably, she moves all of us to the next phase: a hazy future involving growth spurts, hormones, algebra. a life away from - outside of - us. 

she'll never know the moments i have taken to study her.  to etch her into my heart, the exact way she looks today.  i haven't had enough moments of absorption, of making sure I know her.  just today, just this split second, i caught my girl in mid flight, even as she begins to soar so far beyond us.

Recognition

There are moments when you see in one glance the complex, awkward and profound thoughts that swirl in your child's head and you recognize them as your own complex awkward and profound thoughts, filtered through yet another layer of genes, DNA and experience.

There are moments when you are fully humbled by the wide world that is in front of your child, and by their ability to confront it with courage, with a quiet inner strength that is scared beyond measure and determined to go face the scary anyway.

There are moments when you see with piercing clarity the individual your child has become: the growth in their limbs is matched by the growth of their heart and the stretching of their mind.

There are moments when the fog lifts, and you see the fragile exquisite human that your child is, and how their heart matches your heart in so many ways. You see, and you know, how their heart crumbles when they feel they've gotten it wrong, when they feel they've been misunderstood, when they want nothing more than to make it right.

There are moments, a few rare brief and beautiful moments when the crushing knowledge of all that you must do as a parent is bathed in the light of a late summer morning - and the knowledge becomes a gift instead of a burden.

There are moments when you would like nothing more than to capture a few snapshots of a happy Back to School Morning, and instead you glimpse the depths and the heights of what it is to parent. Of what it is to have an almost-eight-year-old own your heart in a million ways. Of what Grace is.

I found all this in the face of my girl yesterday morning, and I am so profoundly grateful.

There are moments when you want to see the ordinary, and instead you find grace.

When Your Story Starts

Came across this picture over the weekend, sorting through boxes of old photos:

It's my high school graduation.

My clearest memory of that day is the ache of my cheeks from smiling that much - as broadly as you can see in the photo - for the entire day.  Every single waking moment of it.

Don't get me wrong:  my high school years were pretty happy years - reasonably straightforward, filled with a lot of sports, a group of truly amazing friends (see you Thursday ladies!!), and a couple of great boyfriends.   I had nothing to complain about.

But on a deep, depths-of-the-soul level was always the feeling that there would be more - that I would be more.  I never felt that I wholly fit the skin of a perky suburban cheerleader, and I lived through those years with the vague sense that there was so much more Kirsten yet to discover.

This was not the dark emo-angst that leads one to carve in bathroom stall doors, or start wearing Sex Pistols t-shirts.  (In fact, when I flirted briefly with an all-black goth look my mother just laughed and said it was cute.)  Rather, it was as if I'd been let in on part of a Big Secret, and that all I had to do was bide my time until all would be revealed.

The day I graduated, the thought that ran through my head on a constant loop was this:  "Now is when my story starts.  Today is when everything starts."

I was headed out into the world, and I was so ready to make it mine.  I wanted to travel - and in fact had booked a EuRail Pass to depart a week later.  I wanted to expand every horizon, to live in ways I'd only read about in books.  I knew with total clarity that I was on course to meet the person I'd always wanted to be - that the coming years would be challenging, maybe scary, but they would be MINE.

There is a point to all this reminiscing (beyond it being June, and graduations happening all around me.)

My oldest had a rough time at school this year - the social dynamics of first grade these days are as complex as anything I ran up against as a 10th grader.  I have watched her transform, as a result, into a very different version of my Cecilie-girl - more introspective, more cautious, much more sensitive to the judgement of others.

Part of my heart breaks that she's learned some of these lessons so early.  But part of me wants to tell her about my graduation day - to tell her that there is so much living yet to come.  SO MUCH that she will learn, so much in which she'll triumph AND fail, so many areas in which she'll grow.

What I would tell my 18-year old self that long-ago day in June is pretty much what I would tell my 8-year old now:  every day is when your story starts.  Every day can be yours, on your terms.  All I had done, that June day, was reach the point where I was ready to see, and ready to grow.   I hope Cecilie is ready for that sooner than I was.

Mix Tapes & Passing Notes. I'm Old.

I heard 'You've Got a Friend' on the radio tonight.  Not the James Taylor version, but the Housemartins cover.  This of course took me immediately to memories of a mix tape my college boyfriend made for me [hey Dustin!].

Made me think of all my mix tapes, down there in the basement - the only things that have made the cut after moves from dorm rooms, childhood homes, overseas adventures.  Most are from old boyfriends, and are more memories of the relationship than 42 dried up corsages.  There's one from my best friend when she knew I was feeling homesick my first semester away at college:  Divinyl's 'I Touch Myself' and Sonny & Cher's 'I Got You Babe.'  Then there's one my DJ friend Andrea sent to England for my 21st birthday - Hole, L7, Liz Phair, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, and Morphine.   

No one makes mix tapes anymore.  I suppose you can dream up a playlist, fill it with tunes for your intended, and if you're feeling super romantic you could even [gasp!] upload it for him/her.  But there's no way you can tell me that carries the same thrill as your biggest crush sidling up to you at your locker and slipping a cassette tape into your hand.  He'd talk to you through that skater fringe hanging over his eyes, slouching adorably, while he played it cool and told you he put some tunes on there he thought you'd like.

That little train of thought got me thinking about notes. Not the kind you take in American History I when you're trying to figure out the Louisiana Purchase.  I'm talking about the ones you scribble in tiny print on notebook paper, or in flowery cursive with the 'i's dotted with hearts and stars.  The ones when you tell your best friend all about how mortified you were when you had to go up front in algebra class and your One True Love was laughing with his friend the entire time - so much that they got detention - and you're completely freaked out that they were laughing at you.  Or maybe the kind of notes you scribbled back and forth during study hall, madly flirting with the senior next to you who normally never stopped to talk. 

So I guess kids don't write notes anymore either.  They can text, IM, Twitter - why would they waste time with scribbling on actual paper?  Here is the part where I hold my hands up, admit to getting old and grumpy & harking back to the good old days before romance was dead.  I guess I just can't conceive of a world where romancing your crush-worthy 15 yr old neighbor doesn't involve a little cassette work, a little note passing, a little effort.

All of this talk about ex-boyfriends, mix tapes and note writing has made me a little bit heartsick for the golden days of the late 80s.   But not to worry - there's a way to be Flashback Fabulous these days.   You too can peg the legs of your jeans now, without a hint of irony.  I saw a pair of pleat-front shorts in Target just this evening. And you too can order your own pair of blucher mocs from LL Bean, just like you could in 1987.  (You know, IF you suffer from East Coast Prepster envy like I do.) 

That, my friends, is just what I did this week.  My bluchers arrived this afternoon, and I fully intend to tie the laces into those tricky knots so I can slide 'em on & off all day long. No socks, of course.

 

Now, my seven-year old took one look at them and wrinkled her nose.   Oooh... those are pretty.... spunky. [she did not say this in a nice way]  Do they have to be so... LL Bean-y?  OH SNAP! I got told by my first grader.  

And just like that, I'm right back in the 21st century, old & grumpy, looking back at the glory days.

Presentibil, and not stout. Whew.

The pool opens in 9 days.  It's fair to say I'm assessing the 'damage'  from the winter - the long days of snowbound inactivity, the many chili meals, the accompanying beers.   As usual, I judge, and find myself sorely lacking.  (Or sorely 'over-endowed' as the case may be. Yikes.)

There've been a few extra workouts in recent weeks.

So I'm talking to Cecilie on a walk yesterday, and she asks me if an female acquaintance of ours would be considered "stout."  After swallowing a smile, I demurred - well, not stout exactly.  I think she's probably just about like me.

My eldest - my biggest fashion critic, the one who paid me the compliment of being 'Presentibil' on Mother's Day - stopped short, aghast:  Mommy!  You're not stout! You're not even the stoutiest bit stout!

I think I'll keep her.

grace

My eldest goes from zero to FREAKOUT in under 4 seconds.  Might be that she can't have a playdate, might be that her siblings took the last vanilla yogurt, might be that I ask her to clean up dolls when she was STILL PLAYING WITH THEM. (I know, the nerve.)

Her voice drops an octave or two and she begins to shout.  She blows her growing-out-bangs out of her eyes and yells at the top of her voice.  The noise might be directed at her brother, her baby sister, her dad or me - one never knows.

The problem with this is that once she freaks out, I go from zero to MAD in the same time frame. 

I know it doesn't change a blessed thing when I get bent out of shape too.  Many are the nights when I go to her room, smooth her hair as she sleeps, and whisper my apologies - again and again.  But combine life with a tantrum-y two year old, an existence of not enough sleep and too many bills, and still three hours to go until their bedtime?  I return to mad almost every time.

Tuesday afternoon began the classic set-up:  a tough day at school, a missed playdate, and a brother sitting in Exactly. The. Spot. on the rug where she had been PLANNING TO SIT!!!!!!!!!!! 

In the next second, I did something I'd rehearsed in my mind over and over:  I very quietly called her over to me.  I looked her in the eye.  And I pulled her onto my lap.

I pulled my tall, lean seven year old onto my lap, her impossibly long legs dangling right down to the floor.  I smoothed her hair, I kissed her cheeks, and I whispered into her ear:  Sweetheart.  Cecilie.  I don't let anyone in our house talk to me that way.  Why would it be ok for you to talk to us that way?  Just tell me what you want.  Please - just tell me quietly what it is you want.

It was like the moment you switch off an old tv: the ping! as the cathode rays fade?  The anger slid right out of her body, and I felt her slump against me, leaning her head on my shoulder.

She let me cuddle her twenty seconds more, and then hopped off my lap to run and hug her sister - storm clouds vanished, furrowed brow smooth. 

I sat in shock.

What was that? What just looked into my eyes and insisted you will be gentle with your girl this time?  What was it that moved my heart to offer love to my girl instead of the fear of her anger?

Grace.  Grace gave me that chance.

On Tuesday morning, I knew I wanted to write a post about grace.  I knew that I wanted to somehow write about grace but was downright nervous about trying to explain my admittedly vague understanding of what grace means.

That Tuesday afternoon, I finally knew grace.  I finally lived a moment of grace.  Every single aspect of your life becomes different when you view it through the profoundly powerful prism of grace.

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This is posted as part of Bridget Chumbley's One Word at a Time series, with the prompt of Grace.   Of all of them, this topic has been the trickiest - and the most real.