Monday, July 25, 2011

Daughter

My oldest child and I are living a changing, complicated relationship as she enters her middle school years.  I remember sixth grade.  Clearly.  Vividly.  She and I are now in life territory I recall living myself with equally intensity.  Unlike earlier memories which are generally indistinct and Crayola scented, I can recall so much detail of my life from age ten up.  I watch her at this life place and am amazed.  


The definition of daughter offered at dictionary.com sounds so simple.
1. a female child or person in relation to her parents
2. any female descendant


Her Legacy
first we are daughters
drifting in the dreams of
daughters who draw into themselves
the dance of life and develop
filled with fluid and joy and invisible
growth we believe but cannot control. 

we grow
in bodies bulging to bear fruitful fruit – a daughter
born stunning as the first star system glistening and amazing
we cling to each other for life in the moment
when we are still one body having just divided and become two
we learn to sleep and do without sleep
eat and do without food
sob and sigh and laugh and cry
listen for each other’s breath and heart beat to know life continues.

daughters grow
mothers don’t always know
what to say or do and daughters usually think
it doesn’t matter anyway
It takes twenty-five years for daughters to know mothers were right
then we hope to speak so well as to make our daughters
listen more attentively
but they won’t.

mothers grow
watching daughters become beautiful un-babies
wanting to keep them in our laps sometimes
singing songs
smelling of lotion and soap
seeing their brilliance beaming from random expressions
wishing to avoid heartaches, bruises, disappointments.

daughters go
maybe into drifting daughter dreams
and mothers know they must
but we hope
to keep just one moment on a camera so we can remember
being a young mother of a new daughter
who every now and then
became the entire world.















Monday, July 18, 2011

Will

As a member of a family I am exposed to the daily will of a group of humans, large and small.  Each person in my household – one I chose, three have my DNA – seems to have their own ideas about the way the kitchen should look or if broccoli is compulsory or what the day should offer or what music plays on the radio or if mommy should go to the gym!  Similarly at work, in community groups, church committees, classrooms, etc. every person has their own will. 

Dictionary.com defines the second form of will.
1.  the faculty of conscious and especially of deliberate action; the power of control the mind has over its own actions:  the freedom of the will
2.  power of choosing one’s own actions:  to have a strong or weak will
3.  the act or process of using or asserting one’s choice; volition:  My hands are obedient to my will.
 
I am pondering how to cultivate strength of will.  Knowing when to dig deep, to assert your choice and when to allow for openness, to listen and acquiesce to others and that life requires both.  I worry that life in my household is often so comfortable – meals are accommodating to everyone’s tastes, activities are scheduled for entertainment and joy of all – that when the will is called upon not for choosing a TV show but to face something unpleasant but necessary it may break down and fail. 

I am interested in the role our mind has in controlling our actions.  To put pressure on our own minds to do something is an internal experience.  Sleeping despite fear of the dark.  Eating a new food.  Allowing a messy game to be left for days scattered on the floor because kids “are still playing with it.” Pressing through a challenging exercise class.  Getting up on time even if bedtime didn’t come as early as needed.  Our mind must assert our choices over our physical state and our body must obey.  There is so much will required, what if we run out?  I know when I am tired my will runs out much faster.  

My hope is that I learn along with my family that we can be strong yet pleasant people who understand that life may sometimes be difficult and that we can control our actions even if they are challenging.  We can finish a necessary task even if we don’t want to.  We can walk away from an insult slung by a sibling instead of joining in a verbal assault that gets everyone banished to separate rooms.   

It seems a murky matter.  Over-assertion gets us in trouble, too.  Actions with no regard to their affect on others typically garner negative results.  We must consciously and deliberately stand up against a rule or situation we deem immoral or incorrect.  Will is used to assert one’s opinions and to accept the opinions of others.  Strength without belligerence is a balance I long for. 


Monday, July 11, 2011

Nothing

Let’s say you are a writer who has been away for the weekend.  And now you’ve returned home in an altered state of mind scramble.  Your body arrives in Monday morning with an unusually full agenda for which you have not allowed yourself any psychological prep time.  After making a detailed list of all the places and times that require your presence today, jotting notes for what you have to take to each place and scanning the fridge to see if there is indeed enough there to sustain your offspring for the morning until you have time to grocery shop, you sit down to ponder what is on your mind.  After all, this is Monday morning - the time for musing.  Computer is humming.  Coffee obediently perched at your side.  Online dictionary open for business.  Fingers poised above the keyboard ready to type the thoughts that come.  And your mind offers you . . . nothing. 

Nothing, the noun, is defined at dictionary.com.
1.  no thing; not anything; naught
2.  no part, share or trace
3.  something that is nonexistent

So, despondently, that is what I’ve got today.   Nada.  Zilch.  Zero.  No creative juices flowing.  No ideas at all.  Blank.  Zip.  Nil.  Empty.  Vacant.  Void.  I’m reduced to the list of my tasks at hand in a strange limbo state between the ultimate fading realization of a weekend away and the reality of a fun-filled yet frantic day ahead. 

I’m not afraid of rolling with nothing for today.  I know it will not last forever.  I’m going to embrace it both because it seems like the right thing to do and because what choice do I have?  Allowing room for thinking nothing may be just right for today.      

Monday, July 4, 2011

Independence

I have wonderful childhood memories of Fourth of July celebrations.  As a kid in a military family I was privileged to hear patriot music expertly performed by musicians and singers in uniform every year.  I remember stretching long on a blanket for picnics with cold watermelon on soft grassy hills.  The celebration always ended with fireworks exploding our emotions in bright blasts in the dark night sky.  I was offered a sensory opportunity each year to feel the pride of being an American.  Today I am thinking of what is beneath that emotion, independence.

Dictionary.com lists the following meanings for independence.
1.  the state or quality of being independent
2.  freedom from the control, influence, support, aid, or the like, of others 

I am struck by the final paragraph from the Declaration of Independence found at the U.S. National Archives & Record Administration site.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Independence is neither easy to come by nor inexpensive.  There is always sacrifice and often growing pains in the path to independence.  This can be said for a young group of united colonies striving to be a free nation or a young person striving to become an adult.  Not only do we remove ourselves from control of outside authority but often from their aid and support as well.  But what a gift it is to have control over oneself, one’s future, one’s livelihood. 

One thing I love about the bravery and assertions of the U.S. Declaration of Independence is that the culminating sentence acknowledges how essential we all are to the success of the country.  A mutual pledge offered to each other of Lives, Fortunes, and scared Honor is the binding force for success of our nation.