i carry your heart.

Little baby Autumn,

I like to write. I like to write poetry, and stories about when I was little. I like to write presentations for work. I even like to write boring business emails I know most people will just skim through and delete. I like to write letters, like these to you.

But I don't write like I used to. Because life is busy. And I have bills to pay, and tasks to finish. I love your dad, keep our house, try my best to raise you to be strong, and smart, and kind. My days are full of verbs. All the practical littles that make up the hours.

I don't write like I used to. Because I've grown up. And feelings, and sense of self fall into the cracks left behind by the hardening of youth. Because we do that, don't we? Spend our younger years finding a place, a shape, a person we think we are and mold ourselves meticulously into it. Waiting to be solid and complete. A finished work.

But the unseen hazard is that most of those molds turn out to be complicated systems set up by millions of those who grew up before us. Tunnels and ladders of default that you may not want to navigate but will be held accountable to anyhow.

You don't realize when you have it, but there is a give that comes when the whole world is ahead of you, when you haven't learned yet the value of sturdiness and the ease of know how. A pliability that lets who you are move about in lumps and grooves. Leaving plenty of room to let your feelings sit tall over logic; writing poetry, singing songs, painting on scraps of wood found behind old buildings. Loving aimlessly everything, raging against without the fear of being wrong, or worse, misunderstood.

Growing up, I'd always been indifferent, leaning towards partial, to the systems we live in. Because they served me well, and I was a smooth stone under rushing water. I liked games with clear guidelines when I was little. The kind where everyone is given the same set of rules and then asked to perform.

When I was in my first creative writing class, in the sixth grade, I remember my teacher giving us a short story assignment. She told us about Ernest Hemingway and his six word story,

"For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn."

And she praised his cleverness. She explained that words were tools, and with them we could express anything we wanted. She talked about how he was gifted because he was able to work within such limited confines. I wanted to be that gifted, I wanted to be able to express myself so well. I was shy, but cerebral, and dreamy in a 12 year old sort of way. The possibility of an outlet for the way I thought was appealing. I remember the assignment opening a world to me. As I got older, I learned about the archetype for classical poetry. About cadence and measure. I liked it when someone was able to express something delicate inside the rigid discipline of structure. Sonnets, haiku, everything in the daDUMdaDUM of iambic pentameter.

I became obsessed with finding the exact right word for everything.

The girl was "lovely."

His tone was "candid."

The directions "precise."

The colors "vivid."

When I got older, there were things in my life that happened, and hurt. There were things that left me confused, frustrated, and hopeful in turns.There were things that filled me up with so much love I thought I would drown in it. Your dad wrote me a letter when I was eighteen, and in that letter he told me I was a "woman becoming." And that felt right. I was becoming. And unbecoming. I was always running to and fleeing from myself like the tides. Like a child on the beach. Life was complicated, and beautiful in a way. I realized how small I had been and how much there was to experience.

I felt overwhelmed a lot of the time. I was at bursting capacity underneath, and still a smooth small stone outside. I fell in love for the first time. I found new ideas that made me talk late into the night with friends who were also discovering themselves alongside me. I lost family relationships I'd planned to harvest love from for years. I lost trust in religious authority I'd hoped to follow through the dark. I pleased a lot of people. Everyone remarked how calm, and insightful, and strong I was for my age. But mostly, I felt helpless.

And no matter how much bad poetry I wrote, I could not find the exact right words to weigh down my heart and keep me from flying away. There were no words to do justice by this big and beautiful world. There was a complicated and twisting landscape of need to navigate, and I felt ill equipped.

Then, my freshman year in college, an English professor drew a man on the board and explained nihilism to me (we'll talk about that when your much older). In a way that didn't ask me to believe him, only to know that the concept existed (which is a funny way of saying it if you think about it). I liked the idea of a clean slate, and wiping away of all the nominal nonsense I'd collected and assigned. Like knocking the blocks over. Later in the semester, he slipped an extra sheet of paper underneath a test he was returning to me in class. On it was a poem by e.e.cummings. 

I went out and bought a collection of his poetry. e.e.cummings didn't follow the rules of basic grammar, let alone iambic pentameter. Nouns were verbs were adjectives were adverbs, and they were all personified. He would throw a parenthesis in the middle of a word and add an extra set on the end in a way that made me panicky. I had to learn to read his poems with new eyes. It made me giddy at times, exasperated at times, and reverent and humbled at others. He said things like,

"since feeling is first

who pays any attention

to the syntax of things

will never wholly kiss you;"

And I agreed....

And then he talked about how I was feeling, in a way that cliche's couldn't.

"when man determined to destroy

himself he picked the was

of shall and finding only why

smashed it into because"

And he used words the way he wanted, like Hemingway had and hadn't all at once.

"pity this busy monster, manunkind"

...and...

“the coolness of your smile is

stirringofbirds between my arms”

(The last of which I particularly feel while holding you. in the sweet minutes before you fall asleep, little baby hands holding my sweater, little baby breath warm on my chest.)

I learned through being introduced to e.e.cummings that you could take a feeling of being misplaced, of being misfit and produce something functional and beautiful in it's own regard.Without limit.

I am writing this letter to tell you that very soon, we will be moving to New Jersey. You have lived in California for seven whole months, and next week will be your last week having the redwoods as neighbors, the last week to see the seagulls fly in front of yellow wheat mountains, to wiggle your little toes in the cool waters of the bay, and the last week to watch the family of deer who live near by growing up together.

Do you remember when I told you how your Dad loves school and learning new things. Well I suppose I should also tell you that your Dad is an unusually smart man. (I'm sure he will spend a lot of your life telling you the same thing for different reasons, but I am saying this to you because it is true, and I want you to know that he is smart because he has studied and worked hard to learn and grow. Because he has not wasted his intelligence on small pleasures but built up a good man inside instead. Also because he married me. And I gave him you.)

Because your Dad is smart, and works hard, he has been accepted into Princeton. Princeton is a very good school. One of the best. But, it is far away, so for the first time in your little life, you will leave what you know, and learn to love a new home. 

It won't be the last.

When I told people here that we would be moving across the country, they always asked me, "What about the baby?" Because they thought moving to New Jersey would uproot your life. Or maybe they were concerned that such a big change would be difficult with a child. People who are closer to us asked the same thing, but with a different tone. Maybe because they see a pattern beginning to form in our lives. We seem to find big changes to make often.

There is something about leaving everything that makes people panicky. Especially when there doesn't seem to be an immediate need to go. Because you are too young to remember, I want you to know that we live a good and happy life in California. It is beautiful here. We have a nice apartment on campus. There are lots of other babies for you to play with and grow with in community. We have a good church, and good friends close by. It is easy for your Dad and I to love one another here.

But there is a part of us that doesn't belong too.

I don't know if people will be still be talking about it the same way when you are older, but there is an idea that your Dad and I grew up with that says we should secure for ourselves, and most importantly for you, a nice home with as many nice things as possible. (before you worry to much about where this is going, don't. we will provide for you.) But that provision may not always look like what the culture we are in tells you it should look like.

I cannot promise you pricey electronics, or expensive clothes. You will probably not get a brand new car when you are sixteen, and when we go out it will be the exception, not the expectation to spend money where it isn't needed.

But, to make up for those things here are some things that I can promise you.

I promise you will have adventure.

I promise you will have the opportunity to make new friends often.

I promise that I will help you be unafraid of new places

and to teach you to be bold and confident in who you are.

I promise to encourage you to explore your world and your life

in ways that show you the only road to knowing, is asking the question.

I promise to respect you.

I promise you will always have someone to listen.

I promise to be reasonable, and consider your desires.

I promise to buy you a bike, and a pair of roller skates.

I promise to embrace the girl you are with enthusiasm,

and to cultivate healthy curiosity, not stifle it with the preconceptions I may have of what you should be.

I promise to celebrate you. And to recognize your accomplishments with pride.

I promise to hang your artwork on the refrigerator.

I promise you will have fun.

I promise your Dad and I will always sing songs to you.

I promise to give you the space you need to become yourself.

I promise to read you books when you are small, and buy you books when you are big.

I promise to teach you to understand need, to show you the world beyond the front porch so that you can better love others, and be grateful for what you have.

I promise to forgive you quickly and always.

I promise to always love your Dad.

And I promise to always love you. 

Sometimes change will be hard. And you won't want to make it. I understand, it can be frightening. Sometimes, we may make changes only to realize we've made the wrong decision. But that is the good thing about becoming accustomed to change. It can be so many things, if you find yourself somewhere in a system you can't seem to fit into, change can easily become correction, and eventually transformation, metamorphosis, and revolution!  

I am packing away your baby things this week. There are so many clothes you don't fit into anymore, because you are growing. While you were napping today, I was folding away a little sweater you wore a lot when you were smaller and it made me sad. Sometimes, I look in your crib and think, "who is this big kid in my baby's bed?" But then, when you are awake, you do something new that you've never done before and I want to cheer! I am bursting with joy at your growing abilities!

And that is what it will be like. Sometimes, it will seem as though the part you are leaving behind is so beautiful that what is ahead cannot replace the nostalgia you have.

But then. It will.

Here is to the next step in our full and rich lives together. To you, and Dad, and I. And all the places we will go together.

...............................................................................
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go, my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
                                                        i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)
-e.e.cummings
...............................................................................

"Out there things can happen
and usually do, to people
as brainy and footsy as you.
And when things start to happen,
Don't worry, don't stew.
Just go right along,
You'll start happening too."
-Dr. Suess


"Kid, you'll move mountains!"

I ought to know,

-I am your Mom.