School's Out

At 2:10 today, I become the parent of a 4th grader. The past few days he's come home with his backpack stuffed with journals, pencils, markers, math books, homework sheets, art projects, science observation sheets, even a brand new dictionary. And he won an MP4 player at his after-school program, which only caused me to wonder, "what's an MP4 player? - I thought there were only MP3 players." So I'm moving ever closer to obsolescence, to the days when he won't share what happens to him while he's at school, won't stumble sleepily up the stairs in the morning and aim directly for my arms, for a first-of-the-day hug (or require a hug before showering at night). I am destined to move further and further to the outside of his orbiting world, as he aquires new planets and suns and stars for his own path. May I make this move with dignity, even as right now, today, I feel the urge to stomp my feet and demand eternal relevance in his life, to stop time if that's the only way to keep this precious cycle going without interruption.

I will miss this time of his boyhood, the time where he has enough time and space in his mind and heart to love me and have it not interfere with his ability to love anything else - study, friends, adventures. But I know enough about growing up to know that at one point, his love for me will conflict with other loves. I hope for the strength to love him when his loves oppose me, for the ability to stay connected to him when he pushes away, re-invents himself through the eyes of others, becomes the man who he is destined to be, even though I've only yet known him as a boy.

I raise this morning's decaf soy caramel macciato to toast the man my son is becoming. And to the as-yet-unknown me who will emerge, slightly more worn and tired, but forever touched by the years I've been blessed to be a mother who is loved by her son.

Blank Page

This first blank posting box reminds me of the blank pages that came before, then got filled with mediocre (at best) early poetry - always sad, heartbroken, the way to cultivate and nurture melancholy yet at the time I thought I would get it out, put it on paper, thus freeing me to move on to something else. At other times, blank pages got filled with medoicre (a stretch, here) drawings and paintings, and there was even the phase of a painted journal.

Of course, freedom comes from many other places, none of which include bad poetry or poor art. But I am forever grateful to the mind I have, which didn't allow me to fit in so well in the land of childhood, where thinking girls don't get boys, but do manage to sustain an awkward, outsider's perch far above and beyond what they long for, which is simply to belong.

Hello to those of you out there who stumble upon a blog from a Thinking Girl. I now live in a land and time where I, a cerebral girl in this ever-expanding cellulite world, finally fit in. I've mastered the art of my overly-sensitive emotional soul and my quirky linguistic and analytic mind. I've loved and am loved by people who are themselves Thinking People who also love to use their bodies and their hearts and their souls. I didn't think I'd ever live in this land or in this time. Apparently, my initial thoughts on the matter were wrong.