We kept it a total surprise until the moment we walked up in front of the building, and she was SO excited. I'd thought to grab the camera on the way out the door, which was a total winning moment in the Mommy sweepstakes. Just look:
Handing the attendant her ticket...
And in her seat! Showing me the ticket stub.
Daddy bought popcorn...
And we all ate some.
Anticipation! Delicious and maybe sort of painful.
And then the movie started, and she was enchanted, and I sat there watching her on our creaky little seats in the dark. I was overwhelmed, and it had nothing to do with the usual Disney/Pixar fanfare. It's been almost five years since she popped out and made me a mother, which is longer than the time I spent in high school. Longer then the time I spent in college. It takes a mere half a second to put myself back in her nursery in Ohio, where the scratchy fabric on the chair marked my back as she suckled to the sound of Hindu chants. (There have been a few phases.)
And lately, because I'm almost back to normal after the surgery and ready to strafe the city yet again with resumes, I acknowledge that something is ending. It may be that some things are beginning, too-- that's my most fervent prayer--but this time of she and I is almost done for.
I'm ready to go back to work. It's time, and has been for a little while, and it would be so wonderful to save for a couple of big goals for the coming years, but when I think about saying goodbye to lazy afternoons spent at the table coloring or painting or just reading and singing to her before her afternoon quiet time, the sky starts to move like the clouds in those movie sequences when the camera, immobile, records the sun rising and setting and rising again.
And then Paul Simon comes in on the movie score, singing "American Tune" (O Sacred Head, Sore Wounded), and it's clear that I've built something beautiful in her that's going to continue to blossom and grow and bless the world, but outside and away from me.
When she looks back on the aggregate of her life, she'll never remember today. It can't possibly stand out when it's going to be so small and gray against the background of other afternoons more sharply terrible and wonderful than this one. But please, let something of what we've built together in these days of playgrounds and ice cream strengthen the foundation of what she'll become. Mix me into her mortar, which is where I belong, and as she grows up and grows away, let something elemental bridge the two of us. It doesn't need to be strong like a rock or even a brick or be everything to her, but when she looks at me, let something in her see these days together now.
She's mixed into me as surely as my own blood, and at every stage I'll see her as she was and is and will be. The time will pass, just like those clouds, but is motionless as the movie camera in the way that I know her.
We have a long time until the credits, but we're past the opening sequences now. Still: this is the narrative, and it rolls along, and it will always be my favorite moving picture story.
4 comments:
Oh, Cary, you speak Truth. My kids are mixed into my blood as well and wanting me to be mixed into theirs is precisely what I desperately want. Thank you for that, and thank you for the tears of recognition.
Thank YOU, Miss A. I cried when I wrote it. I want to hold on to time like those ropes that hold down hot air balloons.
This is so beautifully written, Miss Milkweed. It made me cry, as I have been experiencing many of the same emotions about my kids and myself lately. But there is no way I could have expressed it as well as you. Thanks so much for sharing. :)
Thank you for making my day, Unknown, because you totally did. I'm glad you connected with it.
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