At the left hand turn
at the busy intersection,
my fifteen-year-old daughter
tenses in her body,
her fingers grip the wheel,
her breath comes fast.
What do I do? she asks,
voice tight with fear.
My hand wants to clutch at the door.
I do not.
My chest clenches with alarm.
I will my body beside her to be soft.
I speak in hushed tones.
Drive forward. Now wait. Now go.
And the turn is made
and her shoulders relax.
My shoulders relax.
I praise her as again,
she picks up speed
and follows the yellow center line.
Later my friend tells me
that sometimes she fakes being soft
as a way to buy time
until a genuine softness arrives—
she says it’s a way to not do damage
while she regulates herself.
I marvel at all the ways
we learn to survive—
there is fight, flight and freeze,
and there is softening.
Softening, which allows
the next step to be light.
Softening, which leaves space
for goodness to arise.
Softening, which helps us
to meet the intersection
of the next moment
as if it’s an open road.
Posts Tagged ‘daughter’
Survival
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, driving, softening, survival on September 17, 2023| 13 Comments »
In Rhythm
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged amphibrach, connection, daughter, meter, mother, night, path, sundown on September 4, 2023| 10 Comments »
Walking the ridge when the sunset
is almost a memory, my daughter
and I make our way through the dark
and we sing an old tune taking turns
with the words and although we can’t see
the dirt road right beneath us, we trust
the road’s there as we step, step again, step again—
it is like that, this life, we lose sight of the path
but sometimes there’s singing,
and sometimes, a loved one’s beside you,
and how does this happen,
the dark’s no less dark,
and the path’s no less lost,
but your feet stay in synch as you step,
step again, step again.
After the Film
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged camera, daughter, film, mother, night, stars on September 2, 2023| 5 Comments »
We leave the desert flats of Australia
and the axe and the snakes and the flames
and walk into the quiet, starlit night
and become two characters in our own lives.
This is the part where the mother and daughter
lean into each other and walk extra close
so they can speak in tones so low
the audience can’t hear their words.
The camera follows them with a low angle tracking shot
focused on where their hands are joined,
then it tilts to the sky to end the scene
in an extremely wide shot where our characters
are barely a blip on the screen,
surrounded by infinite mystery,
the stars, the only lights.
Sunday Afternoon
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, mother, pond, present moment, summer on August 27, 2023| 7 Comments »
Balanced together on a paddleboard
my daughter and I float across the pond.
Already we’ve splashed and tipped
and swum and squealed. Already
we’ve followed dozens of blue dragonflies
with our eyes and greeted
the crawdads that cling to the reeds.
We’ve wrestled and tussled
and dunked and dried and now
we lie on our backs and glide
in the late August sun
and warmth seeps into our skin.
She tells me stories, and my eyes are closed,
and I think, This is why I am alive.
And if the moment is somehow made sweeter
because we’ve been intimate with death,
that is something seen only in retrospect.
In the moment, we are sunbeam and story
and the tickle of damselflies
that land on our skin. We are the aimless drift
from light to light.
On the Night Before My Daughter Turns Fifteen, I Spend Hours Looking at Old Photos
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged birthday, daughter, photographs on July 15, 2023| 15 Comments »
And there you are, eating marshmallows
off the gingerbread house
and sledding down the hill to the pond.
You’re in a frothy pink tutu.
You’re covered in mud.
You’re wearing my hot red dress.
You’re Monsieur Lafayette. You’re a ninja.
A pirate. Chinese take-out. A unicorn.
You’re swimming. You’re swinging.
You’re curled up, asleep in my bed.
So many of these moments
I know you don’t remember,
but I do, and I marvel now
how every moment of your life
has made you into you.
There are moments I would snapshot if I could,
the back of your head as you snuggle into me
on the couch in the morning,
the curl of your fingers
as they reach toward my hand,
the sweet lump of you under the covers
before I try to wake you,
the joy in you that slips beyond the frame.
On My Father’s Birthday
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, death, father, love on July 6, 2023| 6 Comments »
He was a big man,
and I loved the way
he would carry me—
swoop me up
in his strong arms
and float me around
the room.
Now that he is gone,
I carry the weight
of his love—
the enormity—
only to realize
he is still
carrying me.
One Roadtrip
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, mother, roadtrip, sacred, singing on June 23, 2023| 2 Comments »
this song we sing together
as the miles tick by
my temple
The Grown Daughter
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, mother, sleep, touch, waking on June 23, 2023| 7 Comments »
Before my eyes are open,
I reach across the bed
to find my mother’s arm
atop the comforter
still heavy with sleep.
I settle my fingers there
like a butterfly landing
on a flower the same color
as its wings. Grateful
for this simple proof
she is here, soft and breathing
beside me, I fall back asleep,
my hand still touching her.
Long after we wake,
I still feel it in my hand,
not her arm itself,
but the reaching.
One for Father’s Day
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dad, daughter, father's day, laughter on June 18, 2023| 2 Comments »
inside my laughter
stencil of my father’s laughter—
an audible tattoo
Before the Wings Appear
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, dreams, mother, sleep, touch, vulnerability on June 3, 2023| 5 Comments »
for my daughter
“Snuggle,” she said,
a two-syllable passport
to another world—
the world in which
she is more dream
than mask, more breath
than task, her softness
inviting my softness,
and I slipped beside
her dream-scented body
and curled myself
into her shape,
one arm draped
across her weight,
and matched my inhale
to her inhale, matched
my every exhale to hers
and listened as once again
sleep took her,
and she was not curious,
not smart, not funny,
not brave, but so deeply
herself, and how could I not
fall deeper in love,
a pilgrim in this realm
of sweet defenselessness,
the silken luff of our breaths
weaving around us
like a cocoon.
Making a Difference
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged authenticity, daughter, hero on May 27, 2023| 17 Comments »
for my daughter
She is the hero of this story,
not because she killed an enemy
or fought a beast or traveled
to a distant snowy and hostile land.
She is the hero because she stayed,
which is sometimes the hardest thing to do.
She is the hero because she is kind.
Because she cries in the movie
when the letter from a dead man
arrives to talk about love.
Because every day she finds ways to laugh.
She is the hero because she holds my hand.
Because she teases me with no mercy
and knows all my flaws
and still tells me she loves me.
Because sometimes she’s scared.
Because she wakes every morning
and shows up for the day,
even though she hates mornings,
though she has seen unspeakable things,
she wakes up, opens her hands,
her heart, her eyes, her ears,
and lets life fill her.
And the next day,
she does it again.
On Mother’s Day
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, daughter, garden, mother, mother's day, work on May 14, 2023| 2 Comments »
for Vivian
She with the shovel,
I with the rake,
we move across
the garden row
clearing and weeding
and tilling the soil—
how hard it is,
how heavy, and
how simple,
this essential work—
preparing for beauty
together.
Long Distance Intimacy
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, intimacy, long distance, mother, mother's day, paradox on May 13, 2023| 6 Comments »
for my mother
Far away, she pulls beetles from the roses.
She prunes the bushes to encourage the blooms.
Far away, she finds ways to feed the hungry,
She visits those who are alone,
and she sings to them.
How is it, half a country away, I feel her
pulling from me what doesn’t serve,
pruning so I might grow,
feeding me with intention and tenderness,
her song the song I have known since birth,
the song that never leaves me,
the love song I sing back to the world.
First Time Driving in the Berkshires
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged becoming, daughter, dreams, home, parenting on May 5, 2023| 6 Comments »
I could live here, says my daughter;
and staring into the generous green
and the time-softened hills,
she sees an open door in the landscape,
a door she could walk through
and call the new place home—
and I watch as she becomes
the hero of her own story,
watch as in the passenger seat
she grows wings, listen as she hums
like a tuning fork suddenly come alive,
struck by her own dreams,
and mygod, its beautiful watching
as aspiration slips itself into her body
and whispers possibilities
and bids her keep her eyes open.
Why I Watch Raiders of the Lost Ark Again (and Again
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, family, intimacy, movie on April 21, 2023| 2 Comments »
I already know Indy will be trapped
in an ancient room full of snakes
and survive, but I watch again, anyway,
though I wince, because my husband
is on my left and my daughter is on my right
and the cat curls under the blanket
on my lap, and though I hate
how my heartrate skyrockets
when Indy is dragged on a rope
behind a military jeep, I would
watch it all again another thousand times
for just that moment when
my girl snuggles deeper into my side
and rests her head on my shoulder,
yes I would watch any night
the melting flesh when the ark is opened
just to hear beneath the soaring theme
the quiet soundtrack of her breath.
Impossible Generosity
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, generosity, grief, love, parenting on March 27, 2023| 12 Comments »
for my daughter
I want to give you what I could not give you,
a world where there is no hurt or grief.
a world where you don’t know
ravaged and sleepless nights,
don’t know mornings too quiet
or the color of dirt in the cemetery.
Because I cannot give you this,
I want to give you the certainty
that you can live fully in a world
where there is hurt and grief,
that you can meet what is most painful
and at the same time
turn toward what is beautiful.
I want to give you a love so safe
that you grow into yourself
certain that there is nothing
you can do or not do
that could keep me from loving you.
I have been loved like this, too,
and did not know the enormity of the gift
until I longed to give it to you.
I want you to take it for granted
that love is so vast, so unshakeable,
so true. I want to give you the belief
in your resilience, want you to know yourself
as a flower that grows more vigorously
after it’s been cut back.
I would keep the hands from cutting you,
but since I can’t do that,
I want to be the soil, the rain, the sun.
I want to give you what cannot be given,
want to give you what you have given me—
the astonishment of living with you
in a time of hurt and grief
and the miracle of watching you grow.
The Mystery
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, daughter, falling in love with the world, mystery on March 21, 2023| 1 Comment »
By now I know it’s impossible
to make someone else
fall in love with the world,
so when you say to me,
Look, Mom, the sky, it’s so beautiful,
and you stand there in the glow of sunset,
soft pink shining on your face,
I fall more in love not only with you
but with whatever it is
that opens us to wonder—
whatever grand mystery it is
that breathes warmth on our tight scales
and whispers to us, open,
then helps us get out of our own way
as one by one the petals unfurl,
and my god, the beauty,
the mystery, the beauty.
Redefining
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged awe, daughter, reverence, walking, wonder on March 5, 2023| 4 Comments »
Perhaps I thought awe required a symphony
or spinning galaxies or flagrant pink sunsets
or dropping to my knees, but today, it’s as simple
as walking beside my daughter on a quiet back road,
and her ears hurt and my legs are tired and spring
is barely a dream, but on this drab and windy afternoon
surrounded by bare branches and dirty old snow,
I feel it, reverence, how big it is, this love for her,
this wonder for the world, and I thrum
with the great gift of being human,
and the world is vaster, my god, it’s sublime.
Tobogganing with My Teenage Daughter
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, mother, play, slow, snow, speed, time, winter on February 24, 2023| 7 Comments »
Perhaps I wish for something dangerous—
a rush, a breakneck ride, a snow-drunk risk.
Instead, my daughter and I slide the toboggan
down the drive with a languid, slow-motion
sluggishness. And we laugh as we urge
the wooden sled forward, creeping
down the hill. After a few laps, the run
is fast enough we can build a small jump
at the bottom, but it’s more of a bump
than a launch. What is it in the heart
that loves a surge, a swell of excitement,
a dance with danger? Why is it fun
to be out of control when the stakes are low?
Oh, my girl and I know, we know what it’s like
when the stakes are high. No wonder
we laugh as we slide at the pace of a stroll.
We know what it’s like to be out of control.
We know. I hold her by the waist as we barely move.
And part of me longs for speed. And part of me
is grateful to move in a way that lets me hold her
a little bit, even just a few seconds, longer.
Sitting in the Driveway with My Daughter
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged connection, daughter, mother, music, paradox on February 20, 2023| 8 Comments »
You share with me the song
that makes you cry.
Oh strange alchemy
of connection—
as I tune my heart to yours
what at first seemed dark
and moonless
begins to reveal
its tender light.