so full of light, this girl
walking through the airport
that watching her I see how one person
makes everything around them brighter,
even, when I am with her, me.
Posts Tagged ‘daughter’
One Probably Biased
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, biased, connection, daughter, mother on September 8, 2026| Leave a Comment »
Leaving the Film Festival the Day Before My Daughter Leaves for College
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged character, cinema, college, daughter, letting go, mother, movie, perspective on September 7, 2026| 4 Comments »
High angle shot: we see the main character,
dressed in boots, a pale orange sweater
and a brown cowboy hat, emerging slowly
from a theater with a throng of others.
She looks small, vulnerable. Close up: reveals
she’s been crying, no, is still crying, but perhaps
trying not to cry. Medium shot. A beautiful young woman,
late teens, in a gray t-shirt, long brown hair floating loose
around her shoulders, comforts the main character.
Asks her if she would like to go for a walk instead
of getting back in line to see another film.
The main character shakes her head, then nods,
laughs, even as the tears continue to fall. Insists
that even though she cries so much, the movie
that would be made about her is a comedy.
The young woman rolls her eyes, nods,
takes the woman in the hat by the hand, walks her
away from the crowd. Long shot reveals they are
in high mountains, the aspen not yet changing,
but there’s a golden hue to their green. Above the aspen,
the spruce are thick, and above tree line, the sheer cliffs
tower, red and gray, shadowed, then spangled with the kind
of light you see in movies but can’t imagine
in your own life. But it is her own life. And she walks
with the smiling but serious young woman who is her daughter
through the unbearably beautiful set. The camera shot
changes to her point of view, focusing on the small brown bird
that sits on a railing beside her, then on the green leaves fluttering
above them, then on her own hand twined with her daughter’s,
the touch light and familiar. There are no lines for this scene
in which she wonders how she ever got lucky enough to nab
this leading role and the supporting role in this other story.
After the preparation, the letting go.
So much is about to change.
She’s determined to give it her everything.
Irreplaceable
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, mother, Nevada, pony express, road trip, touch, travel, wife on August 29, 2026| 7 Comments »
Here, there is highway heading east and west.
A great basin we have named The Great Basin
is rung by mountains and filled with low brush
and not much that man has touched except
this small roadside stand that describes how once
the Pony Express riders would use this rugged route,
changing horses every ten to fifteen miles.
In the car, my daughter sleeps while my husband
and I stand in a merciless wind, reading how
it took only two days after the first transcontinental
telegraph was sent for the Pony Express to shut down.
How much of what we rely on now will become obsolete
in a heartbeat? The postage stamp? The satellite?
When I return to the car, I squeeze the solid hand
of my husband, trace the soft skin of my daughter’s arm,
grateful for gestures no technology can supplant.
Later, we tell inside jokes. Later, we ooh and ahh
as lightning bisects the Great Basin. Nothing can
replace this, I think, as my daughter tangles her hand
mindlessly in my hair and I lean in toward her touch.
Reciprocal
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, gift, holy, Lake Tahoe, mother, swimming, world citizen on August 26, 2026| 4 Comments »
It was cold, the water, and clear, so clear,
and we swam through the center of a secret cove
in the calm, blue water, my daughter and I,
surrounded by pine trees and smooth white rocks.
The morning was new and the lake water still,
and no matter how far we swam, we saw
to the sandy, white bottom. In a world of chaos,
currents and swirl, I longed for my heart to be that clear.
For a moment, it was. For a moment, I understood
the magnitude of the gift of clear blue water
and smooth white rocks, a strong able body
and a secret cove. I may not know what holy means,
but I know I want to give back to this world that gave me
a gray and glorious morning swimming with my girl.
One Driving Across Nevada
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, heaven, mother, road trip on August 25, 2026| 2 Comments »
not one thing growing
in the vast salt flats
but beside me my daughter sings
and I know, right here, heaven
Fledgling
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged absence, college, daughter, graduation, heartbreak, letting go, mother on August 3, 2026| 11 Comments »
Now that I know for certain she will leave me,
I dare to love her more. Her room will be empty.
The house no longer filled with her music.
The spilling trills of her laughter too far away to hear.
I have known since her birth she would leave me,
but knowing is different from feeling, and her absence
comes so soon. At the same time the heart lets her go,
lets her go, lets her go, it leans in closer, becomes a sanctuary
that knows no walls, a nest as wide as the world.
At the same time I release her, I fall more deeply in love
with the way she croons to her cat, with the feathery softness
of her skin, with how a song is ever winging from her lips.
I welcome it, this ache. These tears were always meant
to be cried. This heart was always meant to break.
Kinship
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged cat, connection, daughter, loneliness, pet, touch on July 21, 2026| 4 Comments »
after Jane Hirshfield
Oh look, I say to the cat
You have a soup belly.
I jiggle and wiggle her soft, floppy middle.
She does not love it.
I get it, I say to her. Sometimes
I don’t want to be touched either.
More truly, I do want to be touched,
but only in the way I want to be touched.
The cat holds her paws midair, frozen there,
as if not yet sure if to attack or relax.
She chooses relax. I choose
to massage between her ears.
She nuzzles her small skull into my palm.
I know, I say to the cat. I miss her, too.
We both know she’d rather be with my daughter.
We both feel the absence here.
We sit a long time like this, the cat nuzzling,
me dragging my fingertips forward and back,
forward and back.
With her body, she shows me
just where and how much to touch her.
When I move to rise, she lashes out with a claw
to keep me in place beside her.
In this way, I study my life.
How to hold. How to let go.
Loneliness wears a haunting perfume,
resinous, sweet, full of laughter
and silence. What a gift, I say to the cat,
to miss her together.
I cross the room. The cat follows to where I sit next.
Later, she leads me to her bowl. I follow.
And I Can’t Stop Listening
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged birthday, daughter, growing up, mother, parenting on July 14, 2026| 2 Comments »
for Vivian on her 18th birthday
like six thousand five hundred seventy notes
springing out of the steps of the scales
into new surprising arrangements
she is becoming
her own ecstatic soundtrack
July 5
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged birthday, childhood, dad, daughter, father, memory, music, remembrance, what a wonderful world on July 5, 2026| 2 Comments »
Dad would lie on his back
in the middle of the living room.
I would step into his open palms
on either side of his shoulders
and slowly, he’d lift me into the air.
I loved the wavering, the bobble
before the balance, the moments
of freedom when I floated above him.
Today, when the concert ended
with “What a Wonderful World,”
it was only in the last verse I realized
they’d played Dad’s favorite song
on this day, his birthday, almost
five years after his death, and
I felt it again, that sense of being
elevated by a power greater than my own.
Tears falling even as I started
to laugh. Laughter rising even
as I started to cry. The gift of it all
swirling in me as ecstatic as the violins,
primal and playful as the drum beat,
unexpected as the riffs on the piano,
familiar as my dad’s hands wrapped
around my soles pressing me higher,
oh wonderful world, higher.
Sending Love
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, distance, love, mother, sky on June 12, 2026| 2 Comments »
for my daughter
When you were a girl
and you’d leave for camp,
I would talk to you
through the sky,
whispering through
blue and star-dappled
dark. The message
was always the same:
I love you. I hope you
are happy. I want to gather
you a jar full of sky
so wherever you are
you can put your ear
to it and hear those simple
words translated into starlight
and sunset, cumulous
and cirrus. Sometimes
it’s easier to trust what
we can hold in our hands.
But if you ever spilled
the contents of the jar,
the love would be no less
present. In fact, you could
hold the empty glass
to your chest and feel
how love is as uncontainable
as wind, as insistent as thunder,
as everywhere as air.
The Conversation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged birds, conversation, daughter, forgiveness, knitting, love, mother, naming on June 3, 2026| 4 Comments »
I was sitting beside my mother on the couch,
knitting a blanket for my girl. My mother held
the yarn in her lap, a cloud of muted pinks.
Outside, the tall dry grasses weaved
in golden evening light. A Western Warbling Vireo
rambled on in its jumbled, warbly way. Mom spoke
of her plans for dinner the next night
and I knit two, purled six, knit two, purled six.
She guided the soft wool through her fingers,
keeping just the right amount of slack. I felt
such a tide of love for her. Wanted to tell her
I’m sorry for every time I’ve been hardened,
every time I’ve pushed her away instead
of pulling her close. I wanted to whisper
the love beyond words, some sentence true
as the sweetness I felt today sitting beside her
in the sun in the grass while we waited
for a Belted Kingfisher or Northern Yellow Warbler
to fly across the pond. But to name a feeling is so
much harder than naming a bird. So when the row
was done, I rested my head on her shoulder, closed
my eyes and nuzzled in. There was only softness
in me then. I’d like to think she translated what
I meant. Just as I knew what she was saying to me
with each length of unspooling yarn: I know
how you love me. I know your heart. I love you, too,
my girl. By the time we rose, we were held
by the dark. Even the swallows were quiet.
The Moment I Hope to Remember
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, exhaustion, graduation, love, mother, ordinary moment on May 28, 2026| 2 Comments »
sitting on the couch,
our bodies lean into each other—
two aspen trees, shared roots
The Day Before Graduation
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, framing, graduation, love, parent, story, writing on May 27, 2026| 4 Comments »
for Vivian
Already she knows terrible things happen.
Already she knows the pleasure of scrambling
in the woods at night with friends and singing
too loud and making bad choices that are sometimes
exactly the right choices. She knows sobs and
silliness. She knows how much humans can hurt
each other. She knows how a touch or a tender
word erases nothing but creates its own plot of trust.
There was a time when my job was to protect her,
filling her pages with beauty and courage and honesty.
Now my job is mostly to love her, to give her her own pen.
Because terrible things happen. And she is the one now
who shapes her story. Every writer knows, we write
what we know—and what we can’t ever know.
I pray what emerges is the impossible—an irrational,
deep rooted love for this difficult, glorious world.
What Goes On
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bindweed, daughter, garden, mother on May 25, 2026| 5 Comments »
Knowing it will grow back tomorrow
does not stop me from pulling
the bindweed today. Once I pulled
bindweed as if the goal was to clear it
from the garden. Now, I pull bindweed
as if the goal is to love this act of being
alive, this ritual of pulling bindweed, my
daughter beside me, soft easy chatter
rising between us. There is no blessing
or disaster yet that has ended this
communion of tugging on the long white
roots. Somehow, in this season of
endings, the bindweed seems to promise
tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.
Two Thousand Three Hundred Forty
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, food, graduation, letting go, love, lunch, mother, school on May 22, 2026| 4 Comments »
That’s how many school lunches
I’ve made her, more or less, since
that first day she held my hand and we
stood on the grass outside the elementary school
before the first bell rang. Her hair was blonde then,
mine not gray. I’m not crying as I make her
lunch this morning. Dilled bean and rice salad.
Fresh blackberries. Pretzel sticks.
Honeycrisp apples sliced into thin rounds
that her friends call “floppy apples.”
Maybe I’m crying.
Me and all the other mothers on the last
day of the last year of school. Thinking of
two thousand three hundred forty bleary mornings
when I woke to pour love into plastic containers
along with dried mango and tofu cubes,
seaweed strips and yogurt tubes.
Okay. So I’m crying. I nibble the squared off core
of the apple to gather every last bit of sweetness.
When it’s gone, I lick the stickiness from my fingers.
Watching My Daughter Before Her Prom
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, impossible, love, mother, prom on May 3, 2026| 3 Comments »
More flowing than walking
she moves down the street,
her green dress billowing,
her shoulders bare.
Sometimes the world
asks us to do impossible math—
for instance to add more love
when already we are filled to capacity
with love. And again tonight, I meet it,
the impossible.
At the Senior Dance Recital
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ballet, dance, daughter, mother on April 2, 2026| 4 Comments »
After fourteen years of pink leotards
and bobby pins, sewing ribbons
on pointe shoes and driving home late
from rehearsals, she dances tonight
with feline ease, confidence in the curl
of her fingers, grace in her glance
as she follows the gentle lift of her arm,
and instead of trying to capture
this final recital in pixels, I bid myself
to be completely here, following her
leaps and feeling the fierce inner deluge
of joy and pride and love and thrill
as for one last time she smiles
from the stage and I see her as
the small white-winged angel who could
barely plié, and I see her now as she soars,
almost flies, before, with a wave of her arm,
she bows, turns toward the wings, disappears.
A Sign?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, feather, meaning, sign on February 25, 2026| 6 Comments »
There, on my sleeve, a small white feather.
I don’t know that I believe in signs.
But the white feather that appears on my sleeve
while I think of saying goodbye to my girl
doesn’t mean nothing. It says to me,
pay attention. It says, slow down. It says,
you have learned how to love what isn’t here.
I think of all the white feathers I started to see
after the death of my son. On the sidewalk.
In the air. On a mug. In a dream.
So I say to the feather, I see you. And I say
to the feather, thank you for reminding me
to notice the smallest of things. I say to the feather,
such a gift that you should appear here now.
And I say to my girl, I see you. And I say to my girl,
I love how good your hand feels in my hand. And I say
to my girl, such a gift you are here right now.
At Her Last Dance Recital
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ballet, beauty, daughter on December 14, 2025| 4 Comments »
It was not all for this one moment
when she stood alone on stage,
poised on her toe shoes, both arms
raised, her hands and wrists pulsing
in delicate waves—all the pink tights
and hair nets, blisters and tears
and long rehearsals for fourteen years—
it was not all for this winged moment
when Saint-Saëns played and she leapt
and pirouetted and pas de bouréed—
but this was the moment when I knew
with certainty that in a world of ache
and cruelty, we can change the world
and be changed by beauty.
This, Too, Is What I Was Born For
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, family, fire, gratefulness, husband on December 8, 2025| 10 Comments »
with a phrase from Augusta Kantra
To sit late at night by the small fire
my daughter has made using cedar wood
split by the man I married over thirty years ago.
To feel the good heat of it reach through
the thick muscles of my back, infusing
me with such honest contentment
I unfold in the warmth.
To feel grateful for this small constellation
of family, humbled again and again
by the tenderness we offer each other.
Is it everything, this whispery moment,
with its soft glow of enoughness,
this ease that arrives in me,
as quiet as evening, when I am able to honor
every wanted and every unbidden thing
that conspired to bring me here to this hearth
in winter’s dim light. And like a violet
that can’t help but open at the slightest warmth,
I fall in love again with this life.