Reflections

As most parents often say, having a child brings a lot of laughter and love into your life. (And, often, too, a lot of sleeplessness and exhaustion.) As Cora starts her foray into toddlerhood, I am discovering a new kind of connection to her. Having a baby is very parental; it's very much focused on taking care of and changing and swaddling and rocking and soothing. Having a near-toddler is a new phase, it begins to brush against my own memories of being a wee one, navigating around my home and getting into mischief. It's when memory started. All the little connections started firing away and I began to see the world as something I was a part of, something separate and yet connected, a vast and exciting world of discoveries. Everything is new to Cora! Sometimes I can't get over that. She just keeps growing and stretching, everything is getting bigger--even her little hands and feet are noticeably wider and longer, more able to grip things and walk upon.

Nearly every morning when she wakes up, one of us will get up and bring her into our bed, where I will nurse her back to sleep. She snuggles between us, looking infinitely secure and so small next to her 6'2" dad. This morning I got up for a glass of water, and when I crept back into bed I had one of those moments when it all becomes so clear for the briefest of instants: this is my life. Those two people are my family, the ones I love more than anything else in the whole world, would break to pieces without, wait for at the end of a long day, look for in the mornings, want to hold and squeeze and cuddle. In the quiet of the morning, while light crept through our curtains, I looked at them while total gratitude ran through my veins. This is our life: three linked people--two grown-ups and a little helix of us sleeping softly between.

As I watch Cora grow into her adamant self, I find myself reflecting more on my own childhood. If I stop and ask myself to define the first memories I associate with being a kid, it is so easy--immediately I remember exploring the woodsy acreage on Bainbridge Island, the stomping ground of my first 12 years. We had the immense luck of having a 40-acre, forested backyard owned by a reclusive rich lady who never used her land. I think I spent the majority of my childhood exploring the mossy interior of those woods, making booby traps and keeping a nature log and writing bad poetry. I often set out with my sister or my friends, but what stands out the most are the days when it was just me and my dog Valley, snuffling through the land looking for fairies and gnomes, listening to the birds, making bouquets of trilliums (until I learned, to my horror, that they can take up to 15 years to first produce a flower, and, if you pick the bloom, it can take up to seven years for it to flower again), and feeling the world roll at my feet. These spaces of solitude continue to define happiness for me. I think I have been searching for that place ever since we left. I also remember getting into a lot of mischief with my sister, stealing stuff and making prank calls, trying to smoke tea bags and almost burning down our backyard. And while there are countless memories of adventures with my family, going camping on Orcas Island or Shi Shi beach, walking on rocky beaches, or helping my mom cook in the kitchen, those aren't the times that stand out first and foremost.

All the time and attention that we pour into our children is for the purpose of helping them thrive on their own. We spend their young lives trying to fill them with our love, hope with all our might that they will search for experiences that mirror the love and trust and security we hope they felt as a member of our family. And if they are able to wander into the world by themselves and feel a sense of awe, and give something of themselves that comes from a place of security, then perhaps we can credit ourselves a little bit for that. Or perhaps it is entirely to our children's credit.

I waffle on this point because we all have such different experiences. What breaks one bolsters another. What defines one is only peripheral to another. I mention this because, interestingly, sometimes my most vivid memories of my parents are negative ones. They are the breaks in the fabric of an idyllic existence, ones that began to unravel everything until our perfect home on the island became tattered and worn out, exhausted and dangerous. It has taken 30-plus years to revisit those tough times in my head and look at them with adult eyes, to understand the network of stuff that slowly broke everything down. So I wonder if there is some kind of cadence to it all, a process by which we filter through all the good and all the junk and arrive at a balanced equation that defines us. There was obviously a huge amount of good in my childhood, so many moments that surprise me when I remember them, so much dedication and kindness, so much attention and care. I give my mom and dad great credit for the parents they wanted to be. They put effort into it. I have huge respect for that.

And with the tough stuff, I got perspective. For better or worse, it makes me, me. Admittedly, when I lie on my pillow and look at my slumbering baby and incredible husband, and think about everything around me, from the memories that are so vivid they are like fixtures, to the walls of our house to the food in our refrigerator, I feel...lucky. I remember closing my eyes and wishing wishing wishing.

It is all so deeply personal. That's what I continue to arrive at. We all have our own stories: stories that we tell ourselves, stories that happened to us, stories where we become the heroic protagonists of our own fate--stories that define us in ways that inspire our present and shape our future. And at some level, we can't help comparing ourselves to each other, because that's what we do. As human beings, we look inside and then look out, and somehow place ourselves somewhere on that trajectory. Some people are so fascinated by the similarities and differences that exist between people or countries or solar systems that they make it their life work to analyze them. Some focus on our psychology, studying inner realities and drawing connections to outer experiences. Some, like my husband, are artists, have trained a huge section of their brain to memorize lines and light, shape and form, and they create new worlds for us to enter quietly, helping us play and imagine.

For some reason, I like to tell stories. Was it because my mom used to tell me I was a good writer, would sit with great attention while I read her my stories about squirrels and rabbits in the woods? Is it because I liked the quiet time, or because I have escapist issues, or because I like to study people? When do our dreams begin, and what starts them? What is the energy that draws us to our life work, and what sustains it?