Little baby Autumn, You are not so little anymore. And neither is your vocabulary, appetite, or capacity for endless energy. We live in Tennessee and we have for almost four months now. Your Dad is on another degree chase, feet on the ground and off to a running start. You miss him when is away, sometimes during the day while we're playing you look up at me with eyes wide like you suddenly remembered how much you love him and that you haven't seen him in a while, and you shout "Daaa!" and run to the door and point and repeat, "Daa! Daa! Daaaaa!" He is working hard, and reading so many books. But when he comes home, he hugs you first. And he spins you around and tosses you about and wrestles you on the floor until you can't breathe from laughter. You are not even two years old yet, and you are already reminding me to slow down, and pay attention to the important things. For almost a week now, you have begun looking at me when I give you your food at the table and saying "Sit!" while pointing at the chair next to you. I admit, I used to use your eating time as a chance to do the dishes or clean up the living room while you were guaranteed to be occupied for a few minutes. Now, we sit, and we "talk." And I am better for it. I admit to you, sometimes being a mom makes it hard to be yourself as well. At least, it seems that way. And the temptation is to leave you to yourself, watching tv, or playing with toys while I clean, or look at my phone, or just sit in quiet. But the truth is that I am anxious all the time I do this. And I think it is because I know that I am one woman who is trying to divide who she is. I seem to think, if I can't paint and write, and do what I want with all my time I am not being true to myself. But when I do take the time to read a book I want to read, or drink a whole hot cup of coffee (which I sometimes fear I will fade away without) I feel as though I am not doing enough as your mother. But then there are days like today. When we spend the whole day actually seeing one another, and laughing, and sharing. When we go new places (even that one corner of the yard we haven't seen yet) and we eat together, and hold frogs, and make houses for caterpillars so that we can watch the cocoon happen. And I have these flashes to memories of your Nana and I, when I'm 15 and in the car talking about songs or shopping for prom dresses, and experiencing this dichotomy of feeling like I understood so much more about life than she did, but the fear that if that were true she wouldn't share herself with me anymore, and the even bigger fear that it wasn't true at all. And the feeling of sitting across from her at a Mexican restaurant secretly drinking in every part of the way she talked to me like I was an adult. And sitting in wonder at how she treated me with the confidence that I could handle myself. The way I slept in her room every night after the divorce because I didn't know what else to do, telling her and myself it was because I wanted to to watch the TV shows she'd recorded. But knowing it meant I could talk to her as I fell asleep.
And I realized today the wonderful and complex relationship between a mother and daughter goes so much deeper than what I am living with in mind. And I will tell you here, in these letters, how I felt when I was 13, and how I felt when I was 15, and how I feel now that I'm 29. Because there are parts of my life I'm afraid I have not given due justice. That I've walked quickly through because of fear, and covered up because of misunderstanding. But I promise to remember them when you are 15 and you seem like you would rather be anywhere than at a restaurant with me. I will not take it personally when I recognize the flailing behind your eyes when you think your life is passing you by while you shop for pants with me. Because I know this, you are mine now, you will be mine then, and you will come home to me when you are older. Once you have learned to harmonize your life and yourself. Because we love one another in a way that is sustainable and constant. I will be stable, and patiently wait for you to call me for dinner or a movie because I know that when you do, you will really need me to be there. But do call me. Tell me to "Sit!" and talk with you when I seem distant, because I am still, as an adult learning to harmonize my life and myself. I am my happiest when I am with you as myself, wholly and completely undivided.
I'll always be there for you, as you are there for me. It is a divine connection that I promise to nourish and dedicate myself to for the rest of my life.
I will remember all of my life lying with you beneath blankets in my bed. Glimpses of your little tooth grin and blue eye wonder peering over cotton mountains. (There you are!) Little lips leaning in for the sweetest kiss (over and over) that brings me back to faith in things like love, connection, need, and the simple complexity of personhood. I may not know how to teach all the truth this life holds. I'm afraid that, sometimes, even mom's are afraid of the dark. But I know this. I will spend my whole life surrounding you with the undoubtable truth that you are loved. And I will sing forever praises to the way your living touches the quiet places in my heart that lay dormant for so long, and makes them gasp with the surprise of feeling alive and vulnerable.
______________________________________________
somewhere I have never traveled, gladly beyond any experience, your eyes have their silence: in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, or which I cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me though I have closed myself as fingers, you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens (touching skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, I and my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly, as when the heart of this flower imagines the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals the power of your intense fragility: whose texture compels me with the color of its countries, rendering death and forever with each breathing
(I do not know what it is about you that closes and opens; only something in me understands the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses) nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands
Today's letter is from Dad: All the spring days are not bright and warm, sharp in flowering contrast and bluelike cloudlessness Some are still re-stretched with cooler whitishness, holding on to wintery soft soupysky. .Foggy remnants of yesterseason. I followed such an example once, Thinking it noble to breach the oncoming differences In the name of devotion to a picture(esque) of a time that had its time. But we have to look forward to look back. Go straight to return to beginning of a time always passing. Tell the winter to let go; it is springtime now. And the autumn will come always after the natural greens of cricket legs and duller browngreys of earthworms, digging down deeper and deeper to the core, the root of your childhood. Making fertile the coming back home again, through the front door of the screen porch every and all the summer nights.
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Sweet baby, Autumn.
I haven't written you in a while. But not for lack of thought, or lack of love. I've been busy living life with you. You have grown so much! I'm afraid, if I turn for even a moment, your childhood will have passed us by. You are running and climbing. You are becoming who you are. There are things you love, and things you don't like at all. You feel sad, and happy, and excited, and frustrated, and proud in such a whirlwind I hardly have time to appreciate each one before it's on to the next.
You have a toy boat, and for some reason, you've decided that it BELONGS in the drawer of our side table. Only, it doesn't fit. Not exactly. It will lay down in the drawer (a feat you were so proud to accomplish) but when you go to open the drawer, the sail gets stuck. I watch you try and try, and sometimes you push me away when I try to help. And then you get so angry that you just sit down and cry. Then I will help you get it out, only to have you immediately open the drawer and lay it back in. For weeks, I turned the table around so the drawer would face the wall, but the day I turned it back around, you walked straight over to your boat, carried it to the table, and put it inside.
I know it's difficult for you. But I'm proud. I'm proud that you created a place for it on your very own. I'm proud that you remembered it after such a long time had passed. And I'm proud that you try so hard when it doesn't work the way it's supposed to. You get that from your Dad. You also get the short temper when they don't work from him too, but that's another letter.
I'm afraid I don't give you enough credit sometimes. You are very smart. And very kind. You share all of your food. Even the gummy crackers you've been working on for fifteen minutes. You share them with me and your Dad and all your stuffed animals. Currently, due to your overwhelming kindness, we are sharing an unfortunate stomach flu. It amazes me how you can feel so bad and still be so loving. You woke up with it. When we came into your room and realized you had been sick all over your bed, you were standing there, beaming at us because we came to you. Maybe it's something that happens when you become an adult, but I will tell you in this letter, we were not beaming. And today, when we were both ill with it, we certainly weren't beaming.
You are such a big girl now, that I do not have to rock you to sleep. You have learned to sleep on your own. And I will be honest in way that you will understand when you have children, I am very grateful. But tonight, since you are not feeling well, and were having trouble falling asleep (even with baby lamb, and your music box) I rocked you. And sitting in the rocking chair, your sweet head on my arm, I was overcome with a feeling I didn't immediately recognize.
I was sad.
I was overcome as I hummed to you the songs I used to sing as you fell asleep. And I realized these songs have no place in our busy toddler world.They've been replaced with faster repetitive songs. Ones with hand motions and lots of clapping. These lullabies somehow slipped into the past, like the footy pajama's I've packed away, and the baby bottles I no longer prepare for you when you're hungry. But the difference is, I realized when I was putting away your baby things that we were moving on to a new era, together.
There is something that happens sometimes when you are falling asleep, next to someone who cares about you, feeling safe and overwhelmed with love. It's like all time happens at once, and you are a child, and a lover, and a mother, and you are free from your body in a few dreamy moments to live your whole life over. You watch the sun patterns on the blanket tent your grandmother has hung from the clothes line. You lick birthday cake off your fingers while your mother sings to you. You bury tonka trucks in the dirt with your brother. You ride a bike down the big hill for the first time. You feel brave. You feel the flutter in your stomach that feels a lot like panic, but is really wonder, the first time someone kisses you. You marry your best friend and realize, oh, this is what love is. You move from city to city. You feel new. And you get to do these things because in those moments you are protected, and hopeful, and happy. And you are free to let go of your present worries, and your busy days and just be who you are and always have been.
I felt that tonight with you. I hummed your lullabies and found myself in our hospital room, watching you sleep and hoping to God, you didn't stop breathing. I was in our apartment in California the first few chances I had to be alone with you, setting up your nursery. Trying to remember the words to Hush Little Baby. And singing Flying Dreams to you, realizing how perfect the lyrics were for your first lullaby. And feeling like, when I sang to you, I was somehow being a mother despite not having the faintest idea of how to.
And tonight, when I was singing those songs to you, I realized they had somehow been lost. Like moments from my childhood that can only be remembered in that dreaming place. And I was nostalgic in a way that ached for you to be small enough to rest against my chest again. For those sweet moments where we were learning together what it meant to belong to one another.
When you finally fell asleep, you were almost too heavy for me to carry to your crib and lift you over the edge. And when I placed you inside you woke for just a moment, and looked me in the eyes and held my arm before you turned over and hugged your baby lamb.
I haven't written you in a while, because I've been busy living life with you. But I promise, to never get to busy living life, to write you. These are moments I will remember. Snapshots I will carry with me when I am old, and you are older. I want to cherish them all.
I learned this morning that two of my friends lost children last night. One sweet little girl who had been fighting a hard battle for a while now, is finally at peace. And another little girl, taken by surprise in a horrible and unfortunate situation. My heart feels tight in my chest, and my arms keep searching for you every time you crawl away. My love keeps reaching out to places barren out of knowledge of need. But it cannot touch the dark vacuum of absence losing a child must cause. Just the smell of your hair pulls this grasping on the verge of desperation that I have to anchor down with routine. The dishes, the floors.
How brave these mother's are. To face the world. The possibility of life after death, both spiritual and on this earth that goes on without their little girls. How brave to accept love in light of questions about the loveless act of losing.
How brave any mother is, to love someone so much at all. You, daughters, causing so much abandon in cautious hearts.
As a mother we learn to be careful of everything. Of every sharp corner, of every mean word, of every reach you make. What a dichotomy to question everything but my love for you out of love for you.
Today, you learned how to point to the nose on your teddy bear. Because of the night, I'm not sure there will ever be a lesson you learn, that I will cheer for with more gratitude.
Sweetness
Just when it has seemed I couldn't bear one more friend waking with a tumor, one more maniac
with a perfect reason, often a sweetness has come and changed nothing in the world
except the way I stumbled through it, for a while lost in the ignorance of loving
someone or something, the world shrunk to mouth-size, hand-size, and never seeming small.
I acknowledge there is no sweetness that doesn't leave a stain, no sweetness that's ever sufficiently sweet...
Tonight a friend called to say his lover was killed in a car he was driving. His voice was low
and guttural, he repeated what he needed to repeat, and I repeated the one or two words we have for such grief
until we were speaking only in tones. Often a sweetness comes as if on loan, stays just long enough
to make sense of what it means to be alive, then returns to its dark source. As for me, I don't care
where it's been, or what bitter road it's traveled to come so far, to taste so good.
Sweet Baby Autumn, You are sleeping right now. This morning we woke up and you had your breakfast; peaches and raspberry oatmeal. We've made it to New Jersey, and are finally settling into a routine. You love the new place. You are becoming more and more mobile, crawling and standing and side stepping! You will be walking soon. You have a walker that lets you move about exploring. Our floors are hardwood so there is no place you cannot see when you want to. I love to watch you learn to trust your independence. To touch, and see, and hear all of the new things around you. Sometimes, I cook for you. I make soft foods that you can feed yourself. I spread out scrambled eggs, or kidney beans, or pasta on your tray and you mostly love to smash it with your hands and smear it in your hair. But you laugh, and you love to eat. Except for the eggs. You don't like the eggs at all. It's the only food you've ever turned away from, wrinkling your nose and pulling what made it into your mouth out with your hands. You love the beans. And you love cheese. You also love the splat of spaghetti on the floor. You've learned how to clap, how to wave goodbye, and how to sign that you want something to eat. But most exciting, is that you are learning to talk! Your first word was my name. More like, "Mamamama..." But you eventually dropped the extra mamama's and call me something that sounds like "my mama." Which I love. You can call for your Daddy. And you say "Babi" for baby. You also say "uh-oh" for everything. You fall down, you say uh-oh. You drop your bottle, you say uh-oh. You pick up a toy, you say uh-oh. You point to a dog, you say uh-oh. You get the idea. This is letter is not going to be full of wisdom, or lessons I hope you learn. It's just a brief I love you. And am happy to share my life with you. When you wake up, we will go to the park and you can swing on the swings. Love, Your Mamama.
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
But then there are days like today. When we spend the whole day actually seeing one another, and laughing, and sharing. When we go new places (even that one corner of the yard we haven't seen yet) and we eat together, and hold frogs, and make houses for caterpillars so that we can watch the cocoon happen. And I have these flashes to memories of your Nana and I, when I'm 15 and in the car talking about songs or shopping for prom dresses, and experiencing this dichotomy of feeling like I understood so much more about life than she did, but the fear that if that were true she wouldn't share herself with me anymore, and the even bigger fear that it wasn't true at all. And the feeling of sitting across from her at a Mexican restaurant secretly drinking in every part of the way she talked to me like I was an adult. And sitting in wonder at how she treated me with the confidence that I could handle myself. The way I slept in her room every night after the divorce because I didn't know what else to do, telling her and myself it was because I wanted to to watch the TV shows she'd recorded. But knowing it meant I could talk to her as I fell asleep. 
