It seems the world never stops gathering speed; that the winds are always howling outside our doors. Yes, there are lovely breaks. Sun on my back as I pick raspberries while I let the whining girl just be whatever she wants to be while lying nearby me. Being lost within the novel Looking for Alaska while hanging with Mary Fran in Boulder. The feeling of being so in my body while I am running that nothing else but pushing forward matters.

But still. And yet. Troubles come and go and sometimes they knock you over even though you thought you were standing so, so tall. Parenting comes with hard kernels of truth. We see ourselves in our kids and we reach to help them suffer a bit less than we did when we were kids. It’s hard not to recall the misery we lived through while growing up when we see our own kids struggle. But my kids are not me. I get to try to reach them with my hard-won wisdom. It feels like I’ve handed them a curse instead of a blessing. But I need to look at these problems with love. Even if I can’t quite see these issues as a blessing yet, I can at least see how awesome each of my girls are, how they are gearing up to fly, and I’m just helping them with that unruly parachute that doesn’t always open. This poem that I wrote for a lovely friend reminds me of all the possibilities I see in both of my girls, every day, no matter what.

 

I want to write about you

how your inability to see your beauty

stops me in my tracks every single time.

 

I want to write about this

this idea of being at home in your body

the only one handed out at birth.

 

I want to write about running

how the body finds a rhythm next to your body

how at once we open and I can really hear you.

 

I want to write about hesitation

and change and happiness and light

and how I wish all these things for you.

 

I want to write about messengers

how in the early morning hours

every word is a blessing; every footfall a beginning.

 

I want to write about you

how I see you: beautiful, gathering speed

remaking, retooling, learning how to fly.

2.21.2012 copyright NSA