A letter to myself

Dear Emily,

It’s September 2009. You’ve just moved to a new state with a new baby. I cannot tell you how long you will live here, or how many children you’ll end up with. I’m writing to you from September 2019, so I know the answer to both of those burning questions. I know you won’t believe me, but I’ll say it anyway: you shouldn’t know the answers yet. It truly is better this way.

You won’t believe me because you’re hurting right now. It feels like you have a giant hole in your stomach, all the time. You keep wondering when your well of tears will dry up, but it seems there is a limitless supply. You have been ripped open in so many ways. You are pulsing with pain.

You’re begging me to tell you how long it will feel like this. When—or even if—you’ll get relief. If you only knew, you tell yourself, then you could manage.

The trouble with that is that then you would not grow.

So I cannot tell you how long, how hard, how much, how soon, how painful, how low. You have to discover that.

What I can tell you is that you will live through it. And you will become a far more beautiful person for having done so.

You want to challenge me on that too? I understand. Because ugliness is coming out of that gaping wound of yours. And you’re confused and frightened by it.

It’s supposed to be this way.

I know, because it’s how you get to where you’re going.

The “how” is what everyone thinks they need to know in order to get “there.” But the “how” can only be revealed one step at a time in the present, and only understood by looking back on it afterward. So the wisest thing you can do is to stop asking how, and start saying yes.

Yes to pain.

Yes to doubt.

Yes to fear.

Yes to loneliness.

Yes to the callousness and betrayal and abandonment you feel from what you thought you could count on.

Yes to what has been stolen from you.

Yes to the pain you cause yourself and the pain you cause the people you love.

Yes to the fighting and the denial and all the screaming, so much screaming, in your head.

Until you learn to love this mess, you can never clean it up.

But how? you ask again. How can you love what has gone so terribly wrong?

By believing that God can make something even more beautiful from all these ashes.

By believing that you’re strong enough even when you feel more weak and tired and defeated than you’ve ever been.

By trusting that it’s supposed to go wrong. Which, in reality, means it’s not wrong at all.

That feels like a cosmic practical joke, I know. Like God couldn’t possibly exist, or even worse, that He doesn’t care.

But nothing couldn’t be further from the truth.

I will give you just one glimpse into the future to show you what I mean. I don’t think He’ll mind.

In a few months, you will be sitting at your computer while your baby is napping. You will write a beautiful piece, born from pain, about your pain. You will feel desolate. And writing will be the only place you will know where to put it.

Ten years later, you will be sitting at your computer while a baby is napping. You will write a beautiful piece, born from pain, about your pain. You will feel whole. And writing will be the only place you will know where to put it.

The piece will be this letter. And you will know that while you wish so badly you could ease the pain your past self is feeling, you wish even more that she will experience it. Deeply, fully, as painfully as possible. And you will feel so so sorry. And also so completely sure that it is the right course.

Because you will have learned by then that the right course is the one that is.

The “how” is not your business to know now.

It’s yours to know then.

When you are feeling joy every bit as exquisite as your pain.

You will not believe now, or then, how lucky you are.

How incredibly blessed your life is.

How much love you have.

You will not believe it.

But it will be so.

And writing will be the only place you will know where to put it.

So weep now, and write your words, and nurse your baby, and feel your pain. Feel it intensely. Completely.

All is well, both now, and to come.

It’s on purpose.

Even—and especially—the not knowing.

Love,

Yourself

Ice cream in the sun

More times than I can count, I've watched my child's learning evaporate in a matter of moments.  Its fate is sealed the moment I think it needs to be controlled or quantified.  And that thought comes from fear.

Fear I'm doing it wrong.

Fear I have to prove something.

Fear he'll be behind.

Fear someone close to me will disapprove.

Fear I'm not enough.

I am no stranger to fear.

I used to make it ruler.  But I see it differently now.  Fear is only a weed, and has the power I give it.

So instead of fretting, stressing, or crying when I see a weed pop up, I simply put on my gardening gloves and pull it out.

My child's learning is not my job.

I'll say it again.  My child's learning is not my job.

It's his, of course.  And he knows how to do it, all by himself, and he will if the conditions are right.

My job is just to tend the soil.  Make sure there's enough light and water for him to soak up as he pleases.  (Trying not to under- or overdo it, of course.)  Pick up litter if I find it, and throw it away.

And no matter how rampant the weeds, the process is the same.  Put on my gloves and pull each fear by the root, one at a time.

As time has gone by, I've learned to pull them sooner.  To weed every day instead of once or twice a month.  The funny thing is, I no longer dread it.  I actually enjoy it.

Because I'm hooked on growth, you see.

Learning is not manufactured.  It cannot be forced.  It can be trusted.  It can be crowded out by fear.

So tackle your own fears, and your child will grow in all the best ways.

Proof

You ask for proof.  Performance.

I show you leaves and roots.

You ask for experts.  Answers.

I show you the sun.

You ask for data.  Scores.

I show you smiles.

My evidence abounds, but you dismiss

what is green, not red or black.

How can a sprout or wisened oak

speak to a bottom line?

You fear delays and wasted time.

I watch no clock--

only yellowing.

Photosynthesis

is equal parts math and magic,

formula and faith.

Sometimes I wish I could learn

to count,

to speak your language,

to please you.

But my tongue is tied

when you ask "how much?"

because my answer is...

my whole soul.

I sense the smallest pebble

of skepticism in your hand--

the wall shoots up, diamond strong,

granite thick, mountain tall.

Cold, impenetrable,

to guard my heart: living, breathing

outside my chest,

planted in the richest soil

I fetched from faraway.

There's one small window

and a door.  Can't you see?

The handle is unlocked.  Walk through,

I beg wordlessly.

You’ll see the children have been picking

all day,

and find them slumbering in sunlight

with fruit-stained cheeks

behind the garden shed.

But you look through the window,

see me napping on the grass

amid heaps

and heaps

of dirt. 

No baskets of fruit upon the ground. 

Hundreds of invisible stems.

Repotting

My seedlings need repotting.  The paper cups are holding them for now.  Their stems are thickening.  Their leaves are green and strong.  Their roots are peeking through the holes I poked in the bottom of the cups.

They turn to the light from the window.  I rotate them every so often to give them a chance to face a different way.  I think this should make them more well-rounded.  But I'm not sure how much that matters.  What matters more is making sure the taller plants don't block the light of the smaller ones, since they all share space on the trays by the window.

I check their soil more than once a day, to make sure it is still moist.  I know the peas drink faster than the rest.  They're looking for something to climb.

I resist the thought to plant them outside, even though April is here and beckoning.  It was seventy degrees and sunny two days ago, and tempting.  But there is a quiet wisdom in me that tells me, "Not yet.  May will come soon enough."

Yesterday, the wind rattled and rain blew sideways.  This morning I wake to a layer of snow on the ground.

I was right to keep them here.

There are experts with the greenest thumbs and reliable weather vanes.  They've done this long enough to advise people to wait until the last frost (though some are too impatient or uninformed or can't be bothered).  The day is no mystery--it's predicted with impressive accuracy by the weatherman, and I circle it on the calendar.  I trust it, and look forward to it.  I love my seedlings.  I will love planting day too.

Of course, you don't just go and stick them in the dirt all at once.  First you get their feet wet, so to speak, with a process called hardening.  You take them out of doors for some fresh air, a little exposure to the elements, a handshake with a bee or two.  Then it's back inside.  You do this over the course of days, increasing the duration a little each time.  So when you finally introduce them to the garden bed and let them stay, they'll be confident enough to be willing to extend their roots and accept their newer, vaster home.  It's more dangerous out there.  There are bugs that will nibble their leaves, voles that will gnaw on their roots if they get the chance.  I take precautions.  I'll plant marigolds and green onions nearby to ward off the pests.  I'll set traps for the voles.  But I can't prevent acts of God or Nature.

So I'll pray.  I'll check in every day.  I'm prepared for the work, expecting some to thrive and some to go awry.  I'll give them the best conditions to help them bloom.

None of this will matter, though, if I don't plant them in a sunny spot.  That's my part.  The rest is up to them.  But they know how to grow because they know what they are, (though they might not be conscious of it).  The growing part is in their DNA.

I'm getting ahead of myself.  For now, there's still snow outside.  But they're ready for more.  So this time in between sprouting and hardening, I'll repot.  I'll give the climbing ones trellises.  Some fertilizer or peat moss for the ones with paler leaves.   I'll put the smaller ones closest to the window.  Because there's still so much room to grow in this house, and so much to do.

May will be here soon enough.  And we’ll be ready.

Child-made mornings

Perhaps I give my children too much freedom.  But I can’t imagine a more authentic, enriching morning routine than the one they have created for themselves.  Some mornings it’s handwork.  Often it’s building.  But almost always, it’s storyweaving.

No sooner than sleep is rubbed from their eyes, one of them whispers the magic words.  “In the game...,” it begins, and off they go--down child-worn paths, through the hedgerows, and into their secret garden where anything can be.  Though they do not know it, I guard this place, quietly, fiercely.  But I cannot get too close.  If I step on a twig, it vanishes.  

Still, every so often I peek over the wall and hope to see, unseen.

It’s guilded in sun and starlight.  It’s water and prisms, snakes and spells.  It’s rescues and missions and clarion calls.  It’s where time stops and passes together.

It’s where they sing.

Bricklaying

Early in my homeschooling journey, my two boys and I were perusing the local bookstore when a title caught my eye.  I purchased it, took it home, and put it on the top of my bubble bath book stack.

It was a book about education reform.  On the first page, it asked me to consider if school really was as pointless as most of us think it is when we are going through it.

He believed it is.  He said the big problem with our traditional public school system is that learning has become decontextualized.  That we think with each assignment, each lesson, each test, we are giving a child a brick.  The idea is that after they have enough bricks, they will have built a house.  The reality for far too many children, he claimed, was that instead of having a house at the end of their twelve years in school, all they have is a pile of bricks.  And they don’t have them for long.

It painted a pretty bleak picture, and yet it resonated with me.  I appreciated that he was willing to challenge assumptions, even at the risk of the reader’s discomfort or outright outrage.

He didn’t offend me.  He turned on a flashlight.

I worked hard to give my children not only bricks, but blueprints for how to build a house.  I was keenly aware that my example was that of master architect, and I was keenly aware of my every misstep.  I learned as I went along, with only the occasional brick thrown back in my face. 

After a few more years of homeschooling, however, I discovered something.  The purpose of these days with my children is not to help them build their houses.

We’re building something else entirely.  And I’m not the master architect.

Because they may not want or need a brick house when they turn 18.  It’s not my job to prescribe that for them.  There’s no crystal ball, no way to know what they’ll be asked to face ten, twenty, thirty years from now.  The world is changing too fast.

Then what are we doing here, day after day, brick after brick? 

We’re laying these bricks not for a house, but a path.

I don’t give my children bricks very often.  They find them everywhere.  They pick them up and come running, shouting, “Mom!  Look at this!  Is this a good one?”  My job is to show them that bricks are worth finding, lifting, and laying.  So I send them outside, I give them some mud, provide some trowels, and set to work myself.

It’s messy work, and snail-slow going.  But we’re on hands and knees together.  And I’ve noticed that they only grumble when I do.

Our path is a little longer now, and stretching toward green hills.  You can stare too long at the brick in your hands, and forget how far you’ve come.  You can sit, discouraged, on the path you've built and wonder why you're not getting anywhere.

Or you can go find another brick, and trust the process.  Sometimes there's sun, sometimes there's rain.  Sometimes you're hungry or tired.

And you think to yourself, "Well, if we're hungry, we'll stop to eat.  If we're tired, we'll take a rest."  And you keep on going tomorrow.

Your neighbor is riding an escalator into the clouds.  A passerby, or maybe even your child, asks why you're not.  "Oh," you say, "I suppose it's because that's not where we're trying to go."

"Why not?" he might say, curious now.

"Because," you answer.  "That's not where things grow."