Grace and I were alone last weekend. It was lovely. We went out for dinner (both nights!). We walked down the street on Saturday to a neighborhood restaurant holding hands. We read our books for hours, sitting in bed next to each other. We finished Harry Potter 2 and watched the movie. We took a spin around a reservoir near us, she on her bike, me running, chatting the whole way.
These days she is wearing a necklace that came with a current favorite movie (picked out in the Lindsey-being-extra-permissive Mono Weeks), Princess Protection Program. The DVD came with two matching necklaces, each half of a whole, and she gave me one and put one on herself. As she presented it to me, she said, solemnly, “Because you are my BFF, Mummy. And I miss you when I’m not with you.”
Grace is my past, holding in her chocolate brown eyes all of my memories of my first difficult months as a mother, and my future, pulling me with her to the years that lie ahead. Sometimes when I’m with her I feel like I’m tumbling down the years back to my own childhood, lost in a hall of mirrors. The mirrors refract the light into a dazzling, confusing array of me and her and all the ways we are similar and different. In that somersaulting, interwoven identification lies both the source of my tight bond with my daughter and the root of many of my fears about parenting her well.
Grace is such a liminal creature right now – still a little girl, but the anticipation of a new phase of independence surrounds her too. She has a Miley Cyrus poster taped to her wall but still sleeps holding the two teddy bears she has slept with since she was born. She is so tall I do a double-take when I see her sometimes, wondering when this happened, but she needs me to tuck her in before bed. I can’t do anything to slow the onrush of time, and yet I still panic about it. I hold my hands out, trying to hold on, my fingers as useless to catch the time as they would be to grab water.
The weekend with Grace was two crystalline, gorgeous days, the kind of moments that I’m aware of passing even as I inhabit them. Then today I watched Kelly Corrigan’s video about her new book, Lift, out next week. I loved The Middle Place, and I’ve been eager for Kelly’s new book, but this video felt like she was peering into the deepest recesses of my mind. These words came up at the end of the 2 minute video:
For everyone who has been caught off guard by the pace and vulnerability of raising children.
My breath caught in my throat and I stared at the screen. Because I was stunned I was not fast enough to hit pause, so I watched it over again. And again. Tears flooded down my face. Yes. Seven and a half years in, I am still knocked off balance daily over by the way I can simultaneously rejoice in a moment with my children and mourn its passage. When the line “we won’t come back here” floats across the screen in Kelly’s video, I feel as though someone has reached in and squeezed my heart. This fact is inarguable, and almost unbearably bittersweet. The daily delights of motherhood are, for me, constantly and consistently circumscribed by the sadness of their transience. Isn’t this, in fact, its own kind of middle place?
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Just last night, as I nursed my 1-year-old son, and he lay comfortably across my lap, nestled into me, kicking his leg up over my shoulder as if he owned me, I wondered whether there was a better to preserve the feeling and memory of it. Because it’s one of those transient moments (oh there are so many) that you want to hold onto tightly for ever. It’ has become even more evident to me since the birth of my seoond son. My oldest seems so much older in contrast to his baby brother. I find I struggle to remember the same cuddles I had with him as a baby. Those memories are no longer fresh, they are hidden deep inside me. I wish I could bring them out at a moment, but they’re fleeting. However, what I do remember is how I FELT in that moment. That has never gone away.
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Lindsey, I’ll watch the video in a minute, when I don’t have tears in my eyes.
Your post touched my heart – I’m in a different place (my youngest is 19 – his sisters in their early 30′s) – but I’m in the same place as well (and not just because my oldest has gloriously chocolate brown eyes like your oldest-grin) – ah, I could go on for a week about how your words blessed me…
one last thing I am going to say — about your writing — I’m thrilled with how you see and write about opposites. It’s here in your description of lovely Grace and on your About page – and woven thru your writing — and I keep being surprised and woken up by it. You write so beautifully – about such deep and connective experiences – thank you!
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Lindsey, I appreciate your touching perspective on raising children. I am such a rookie at this game of parenting. IEP still has his whole childhood in front of him. And yet, from reading posts like these, I understand how much I should capture and cherish the moments I have now, at this age, because as you note, we won’t come back here again. Thanks.
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AND…now I’m crying.
I can’t wait to read it! Thank you…
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I loved this Lindsey, but you’ve got to stop making us cry.
This strikes so close. I’m wiping tears…and getting off the computer to join my 3yo in the doggie house she’s fashioned out of pillows and blankets and stuffed animals. Because we won’t come back here….
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I don’t even have kids yet, but I find myself catching my breath at the thought of not wanting them to grow up so fast, not wanting to forget precious everyday moments. I’m so far ahead of myself, but maybe this will help me appreciate the moments as they happen.
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Gorgeous and wrenching. Am pondering my own post on this very topic and must link back to this post for it is too good – and too true – to slip too quickly into your rich archives.
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You nail it every time, just exactly what I feel and have felt. It must help to note it all down like this and to share it, help you hang onto the moment and be aware of the speed with which you MUST snatch it up. Thanks again for a moving post.
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I couldn’t get through this without getting choked up (at work, no less). Both of my daughters celebrate birthdays in February. The oldest turned 8 and the baby, 1. This was the toughest year yet. I am often taken aback by how huge my first baby is now. When did this happen? How did this happen? I promise just one year ago she was light years away from where she is now. Sometimes it feels just bitter with no sweetness at all.
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I am so getting this book. You know how I feel about my children and how fast they are moving away from me, (Dammit, crying again!) as you’ve read the letters I’ve been writing to my children this month on my blog.
So many times I wish I could turn back time. Or even just hit pause. Laying in bed reading with the two youngest last night was pure bliss that I missed until now. How L let me hold his warm, soft hand as we read; the smell of R’s freshly washed, still damp long hair…
Thank you again Lindsey for sharing being a mom with us.
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Lindsey,
Mine is 16 and in so many ways I feel like he’s grown up. There are still a few boy moments, a few mommy moments, but for the most part I see the man he will be and know that for both our good I need to step back and release him into that being.
I can see how you could feel that bittersweet-ness in those young moments (did I feel them? I don’t remember, they seem so long ago now. I must have though.), now though those moments are treasures. The great birthday parties with Nerf gun wars, the time he put his bowling shoes on backwards, screaming Queen while we drive… They are treasures, riches, in the scrapbook of my mind. Not a bit bittersweet – all luscious and wonderful like chocolate cake or brownies.
I tell you this so you know, looking back it can ALL be luscious sweet – even if it tastes a little bitter at the time. A college of my son lives in me, and it is one of my great joys to share the stories and images with him again now… to pass the sweetness on.
Yours,
Megan
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Lindsey,
I’m down the road with Megan. My own beautiful girl with the chocolate tootsie pop eyes is almost 17 and a force of nature, as she always has been. What I would add, though, is to let your self let go of the brake and enjoy the long tumble down the hill with both your children. What I wish is that I had been there more, in each moment. What I am so grateful for is that I have been there at all.
Your writing shows that your heart is open – keep it that way and be gently with yourself. It’s all good.
Christa
And yes, I have already pre-ordered “Lift”. Thanks.
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With a ten-year-old sometimes going on 15 and sometimes going on 6, this post hit close to home. I’m glad you and your daughter had your day, and the necklace made me tear up!
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You know, your posts are catching me on a book buying streak – you’ve got to stop!!!
But really, I loved this. What sweet, simple words that we can all recognize. The want to say yes…
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This is just lovely, Lindsey, and I need these reminders. All the time. I think “We won’t come back here” will now replace “The days are long, but the years are short” as my daily mantra reminding myself to attend to these fleeting moments with my boys.
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I was so touched by your words. I felt like you at every phase of my kids lives. Now, I am preparing myself to let go. I used to always say, this is the best phase. It just kept getting better and better. And now, my eldest is getting ready to go to college. I have literally dreaded this day since the day he was born. I am glad to find you. Your words are sensitive and touching. Thank you.
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I posted earlier this week about transience and permanence and some pictures of Detroit in ruin by Marchand and Meffre.
What those pictures reflect for me is the once grand spaces, now barren, forgotten, left behind. I felt as if those buildings would someday be, in some small way, my own home and more intimately, my motherhood and…me.
That morning, I called me mom and cried a river of tears, going on about how I cried into the kids’ scrambled eggs and how they asked “What’s wrong?” and tried to shine a smile through the tears and say, “Nothing. I love you,” and hold that moment in my heart.
That one single moment, that even while I was holding it, passed.
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Heather sent me here and I am so glad. What a beautiful post that has tears streaming down my face. That video spoke to me, your words spoke to me, I am a mother of two girls, 7 and 5 and a little boy 2. Being a mother to my girls is the hardest thing I have ever done. It forces me to look deep deep within my soul into who I am and who I want to be for them and it so damn hard.
Thank you for this on this Friday.
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Wow how true, I look at my 8 year old then at my 25 year old and share your mixed feelings of joy and sadness. Again all the more reason to cherish each precious child and moment.
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Yes. I think of the moments like raindrops in a river. They’re there and then gone, swept up in the enormity of the big picture, part of the dynamic whole. We try to hang on, but they just run right through our fingers.
Gorgeous post.
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Yes. Absolutely yes.
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Beautiful post – and so close to home. My own 7 1/2 year old daughter is bursting with everything – her creativity, her hurt, her kindness, her warmth, her anger. It is so hard not to be knocked over by her, by myself, and I am over and over amazed at how much I’m projecting these days, reverting to fear and having to pinch myself back into reality, that HER reality is not MY childhood.
xoxo
Jena
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