You're still sleeping. We had your graduation party last night and although I asked others to take a minute to write a reflection or share a drawing or offer some nugget of understanding to help light your way I didn't get a chance to sit down and give you my two cents worth. I was waiting for the inspiration and would you believe I found it in the conversations last evening and . . . of all things . . . our vacuum.
Right about now, when I was your age, 14 and I had graduated from the 8th grade I was a very different person. A different person than I've grown into being and a different person than who you are already. I was living in Coquille and my parents, at the time, Don and Jonnie, had rented out our home to another family. I was actually living with Dana Brice, and her family on the other side of town. The plan was to get rid of everything, bring a cardboard barrel of toilet paper with us, live in a camper on the back of our '74 Ford Pick Up and move to Belize to stay forever. I translated that to be until the toilet paper ran out. I wasn't actually a part of The Plan, or any plan, and I was angry. I was an angry person at that point. I was also in love. Life is like that.
There wasn't a big ceremony of any sorts that I can remember participating in for our class. Maybe something happened in the gym at lunch. It's all a blur. There were some families that had put some effort into making the event a special happening and so I remember some of my friends and other classmates had family in town or they had been given a gift of jewelry or something to mark the day as other than ordinary. Sensing the commotion and realizing other families had gone out of their way, on some level, to mark the event of being promoted to High School gave me an understanding that there was something important about what was happening and, simultaneously left me feeling a whole lot forgotten about. But I was excited and happy for my friends.
My parents had come up with this cockamamy plan to move to Belize. I had no voice. I guess they didn't want me included in the packing process either because I was invited to leave and Dana invited me to stay with her. Dana excelled at everything athletic and was just as accomplished at school, in every subject. To flatter her makes me feel a little phony because she wouldn't have wanted all of the fuss. She was so honest with herself and everyone around her that I think some people found that a little off putting. I found it refreshing. You could count on her to call a spade a spade and that was nothing short of wonderful as far as I was concerned. It was something I admired and appreciated as much as a cool breath of air in my dark and dank room of a life could be appreciated. I just had to be when I was around her. That simplicity was a perfect dose of reality. The parts of her life that were private she was very capable and responsible for and she owned them without hostility. Getting to stay with her and share all the corners of her life helped me to see that the whole picture of her life had just as much integrity as I had naturally assumed it would. She brushed her teeth at night, without even being asked. And she was sweet. The generosity of her spirit wasn't a surprise, but it was what I connected to and what I appreciated about her the very most.
Dana, bless her heart, gave me a balloon for graduation day and her sweetness in that gesture was all I needed to signify that I was a part of the happening as well and that Belize was far away, as it should be. We were sisters, instantly, at least for the time being. I had to go to my house to get some things and when I got home the balloon had wrangled it's way out of my hand and straight up and away into the big Coquille sky before I realized I ever had a desire to be able to be that high. As it floated up, my heart fell down. But, I still had Dana and Danny to look forward to.
I met Danny in the spring, during track season. He was in High School and helped with one of our track meets. The long jump, in particular. Standing there with his clipboard, flirting with all of the girlz who were wooing over him. I didn't long jump. I was on my way over to the shot put and heard his voice, that jerked my head around to find what earthly being it was coming from because, I hadn't so much heard it as I had felt it . . . and recognized it. Although we had never met. And, yes, it was that quick. My heart had found its home.
Dana knew Danny. My dad had a no dating policy and that meant I might not get to know him. He was friends with her older brother, Derek. They hurdled together and had quite the friendly rivalry going. What if we wrote him a letter? She would help me write him a letter. I should write him a letter, we had decided, I guess. So, I wrote my very first love letter, with the courage I borrowed from Dana, my sister in life. I can remember sitting there on her bed, pen and paper in front of me, wads of started letters all over the floor, South America in the back of my brain, sweat under my armpits, my stomach and shoulders on fire with nerves, but feeling nothing but encouraged. I was so drunk on love and appropriately inspired that the final draft of my polished letter was delivered to him saying, "Dear Danny, Hello sweatheart . . . . " I blamed Dana. I had exhausted her impeccable spelling talents with the 40 previous beginnings. I'm sure I managed to spell "sweetheart" so many times that it had blurred on the page and lost all meaning. Or, I had created a new meaning. We just wanted to get the letter to him and make good things start happening. "Sweatheart." I did that.
Belize never ended up happening. The plans fell through and at the last minute my parents found a house to rent on top of a mountain, 15 miles outside of Myrtle Point, on Dement Creek road. Since they had cleared out our house and the family of a friend of mine from Myrtle Point was already moving in canceling all moving plans wasn't possible. As indignant as I was to accept the reality of moving to Belize and coveting toilet paper, I was incapable of coming to terms with moving to the next town as far away by road proximity as possible from my friends and . . . . Danny. I had ended relationships and began one on the intoxicating possibility that I was now an adventurer, whether or not I wanted to be one. It was my destiny, or so I had been told. Then I was informed it was all for not. Minds were changed. The drugs had to have run out. Lord knows we still had all of the toilet paper. When the news came to me I become boiling, white hot angry. I don't handle indecision well. I'm not a dependant person and I don't require permenance. Life is a circle of changes and being able to adapt is essential, but I have no respect for stirring everyones lives up and about and then leaving them there to spin and sail through the sky. I don't talk about anything unless I'm willing to see it through and make it happen. You know that. Half of the time I don't even talk about it. Not that I'm impulsive, I just get it done. Now you know why. Thank God I was such a good letter writer. Up to the mountain we went.
That all seems pretty far away now. About 20 lifetimes ago or so. Here you are, all of 14, staring me in the face, and I want to try to take a long step back to somehow illustrate to you that you are overcoming things in life that are going to affect you and shape who you are. I don't know if it's important to try to put that into a particular category or appreciate a perspective now, but just understand that there is that promise and accept that you will have to embrace it all as best as you can and find the meaning in it all for your very own. And, remember you're not alone. I was living the life I had right in front of me every day until I had you. There was no way I could have anticipated that change, but I was open to it. Bringing you into this world was the first truly important thing I really did in this world. For this world. Out of this world. It was beyond me and changed everything. Absolutley everything. You are your very own, but I claim you and I always will. You're my girl.
Samantha, when I was 14, I was somewhere between the throws of childhood and womanhood with no outlet to express my earned understandings or hopes for the future. I had to scrape and scrap. I was in the backyard patterning a way too tiny bikini and cutting up a rubber floaty into little triangles and stratigically tieing them together with bread ties and string from the frayed clothesline because I had decided I could make my own but wanting to preserve every part of innocence contained in my body. I was deciding to not be confused and making decisions about accepting beauty and ugliness that surrounded me but I didn't know how to take those first big steps inside of my soul and project that outwards. I was looking, searching. My eyes were bright and even if half of my heart was in a hole I had shoulders and ears and elbows leaning towards the light. That is what I decided to let guide me.
And here we are. You're dad fixed the vacuum a few years ago for me for Valentine's Day. Bear with me here. So, I had broken the vacuum, again. We were going to have company over and I wanted to vacuum the rugs but gave up on it because I had broken the stupid vacuum. Your dad quietly took the vacuum out to the barn while I grabbed the broom and complained about how I would be sweeping the stupid rugs. They became stupid, along with the vacuum. I wrote the vacuum off as going to the dump and thought your dad was working on other projects. I continued tidying and then, vwalla, there was the vacuum in front of me. Your dad had never used that stupid thing and so he didn't know how to compare it's performance but he was excited to have tried to make an improvement for me. He asked me to try it out and we were both excited to have it working. Me, because he had gone out of his way to see to this for me and I could quantify the improvements, and your dad, because I was happy. Sure, the light didn't work. The side bumper piece was still broken off. Your dad busted off the left side of the plastic frame in the barn. The dusting attachment was long gone, the wand has been split and duct taped and the upoltstry attachment hadn't functioned since the word go. It sounds simple, but for all of the broken parts, it was still working, and I could see through all of that. It was restored and doing what it was intended to do. It worked.
I talked with folks last night and we moved through the crowd and I talked about my broken parts and pieces and I'm sure I have some that I've lost along the way. We talked about all you've overcome as of recently and it's been a lot. Two tons. But you did it girl. And the sun came up this morning and before I openned my eyes I had that moment. That moment I've talked to you about. That quick little skip of second you get blessed with every day when your eyes are still shut and you realize, "Yes, I'm alive." I clear the butterflies in my stomach and Thank God and start moving all of these broken parts and pieces forward. Another day. Some more good. Help me, Lord.
Some dayz I feel like that old vacuum. That's for sure. But along the way I've also realized there are two forces in life and everyday you wake up you have to pick a side. Not just once. Maybe 5, maybe 500 times that day. You have to decide between good and bad and both of those forces want you. They both have different methods of operation. You have to decide what you are going to focus on. Good strengthens good. Bad distracts and destroys the good. And it's as simple as that. I'm sensitive to trying to generate good and give people good. You were intended for good. You inspired the good in me. Watching you through the past weeks has reaffirmed so many things for me, as your mother, as a daughter, as a woman and as a human being. It's also helped to remind me that this is why we overcome. This is why we keep moving forward. With our broken backs and our whooping cough and our rotten teachers and crappy people trying serve their own intentions. Gravitate to that light. Keep taking that outward step. Do what you were intended to do. Disregard the rest.
My Grampa used to call all of the garbage in life "pucky" or "horse shit." I have learned to listen when old men decide to be frank. Gardening has helped me gain a lot of insight into that declaration. He'd tell me horse shit wasn't good for anything. He was right Samantha. And I've seen how some people try to give that away. Some people try to sell it. They'll sell it to you in truck loads. I think I've ended up with some in my garden. I'm not buying anymore. You think about that one honey.
Thank you for allowing me the privilege of being your Mom. My favorite book, you know, is The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran. Grandpa Jed gave it to me when I was 16 and they had just adopted me. Probably I can give the credit for all of my parenting perspective and restraint to his poem on children. I want to share it with you and tell you that I know figuring this whole gig out with me hasn't always been the easiest, and it won't always be, but we have done it together. You, me and the universe. You see me now, in the now, but you need to understand that the good I have in me has been supported by people like my Grampa Bill, Dana, Danny, your Dad, you, your brothers and sister, Aunt Kath, Auntie Lisa, the good I find in my friends and the good I want to spontaneously support in strangers. Those connections are crucial. I admire the focus you have been blessed with and pray that is something you maintain and grow. You will need it. Today, you are, oh my goodness, light years ahead of where I was right now at your age sweetheart. (SWEEEEEEETHEART) I see that as goodness. You are going to be a part of a lot of people's stories and I am blessed to have you as a huge part of mine.
On Children
Kahlil Gibran
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.
I love you Little Mama. You are loved. So loved.
Big Mama
