Hello Dear Ones,
I keep trying to figure out how to follow up on my deep dive of “name it to claim it” and it’s stalling me out. So here’s a more personal note!
Pippin turned one a few weeks ago. It’s hard to believe. She’s so tall and strong. She’s assertive and independent and a snuggle bug and never wants to be alone, wants to clock us in her vision no matter if she’s on the other side of a big room or waking up in the middle of the night.
She’s so different than those first moments they pulled her from the incision in my abdomen, my guts on the table. And yet, the same soul is there. I knew before she arrived that her primary energy was one of curiosity and exploration. She will spend hours interacting with objects, testing them in a million ways, combining them unexpectedly, trying their textures and sounds and possibilities. She loves my fresh haircut and pets it like her favorite stuffed animal, giggling wildly the whole time. She runs out of patience fast if she is confined or constrained—no snuggles unless she’s being fed or super sick. When she wants to leave where she is, she’ll let you know.
She started daycare. PRAISE BE. She loves it even if she doesn’t love the drop off. You can tell that a kid loves something by the wellbeing that seeps out of their squishy bodies at the end of a long day when they curl into your arms to rest, by how easy it is to make them giggle, to delight them with their favorite song and a dance party (latin and salsa is the fave by far these days), by how they wave to their teacher on the way out the door. If I were her, I would hate everything about daycare—the lights, the other kids, the space, the aesthetic, the music. But I’m not her and she isn’t me and it’s going great.
It’s a relief. I needed my time and brain back.
I’ve been thinking about what I think parenting is “for”. That the decisions we make now are reflective of what we think the point of life is ultimately. I’m going to raise her to be… what? who? To what end? What is the meaning of “one wild and precious life” as Mary Oliver called it at the end of a poem where she asserts that it’s really all about noticing plants and appreciating it all.
I have these words seared in me from the Westminister Catechism: “Q: What is the chief end of man? A: To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”
Not bad. I like the “enjoying” part. What is it to enjoy God if not to enjoy the world right here?
Speaking of what it’s all for, I’ve listened to this episode twice and will likely listen at least twice more until it’s lines and nuances are more securely imprinted in my gray matter.
There is a pathological obsession in this country with making sure that your life has a higher purpose, more than just having a life which is already pretty incredible. Like just having a life is already pretty amazing.
But that’s not good enough. It has to be a purposeful life.
So this is the formula that we’ve all been fed and we’ve been fed it our entire lives. You’ve heard it in every commencement speech. You’ve heard it in every inspirational speech. And it’s:
Each of you is born with a special gift. Each of you has one unique offering. That’s why you were sent here. To find what that is. The one thing that you can do that literally nobody else can do. It’s your job in life, your purpose to uncover what that thing is.
And then once you find it, you must foster it and master it and curator until you are at the top of that thing that only you can do.
And then you must monetize it. [here everyone is cracking up] Because if you don’t monetize it, you’re not really successful at it. It’s just a hobby. You must monetize it,
But it’s not enough to monetize it and be very successful at it! You must be an opportunity creator for other people within this purpose that you created! so that you bring other people who uplift other people with your purpose!
And it’s not enough that you uplift other people and you monetize it. You must leave a legacy. You must leave a legacy so that when you are gone, generations after you’re gone, the world is a changed place because you were here.
No pressure
Am I wrong?! Everybody that I know is struggling from so much purpose anxiety that they can’t live! And what if that’s totally wrong?
I was giggling along with everyone else in the audience. Written out it lands with a far more sobering weight.
What if this is all wrong? I’ve worked this way most of my life. And it’s interesting how little thought I’ve given to applying all that purpose anxiety into raising Pippin. Now don’t get me wrong, I have so much Parent Guilt Anxiety—like what if I’m a BAD MOM?! But that seems more tied to other ideas about what parenting is supposed to be about sneaking into my brain.
What if I don’t know what it means to parent? What if I don’t have a set statement of what it means to raise Pippin well? What if I just want to stare at trees and dogs and other kids and dead leaves and dance to Encanto soundtrack (again) with her? What if I admit I have no idea what we’re doing here and that I don’t know what she’s doing here? Can that make us all breathe easier?
It’s an odd surrender for me.
Reminds me of a poem by Maggie Smith that my friend Kay shares on a recurring basis.
Good Bones BY MAGGIE SMITH Life is short, though I keep this from my children. Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways, a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative estimate, though I keep this from my children. For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird. For every loved child, a child broken, bagged, sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world is at least half terrible, and for every kind stranger, there is one who would break you, though I keep this from my children. I am trying to sell them the world. Any decent realtor, walking you through a real shithole, chirps on about good bones: This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful.
It could be beautiful
I’ve been wrestling with the line (oh I love to imagine there are lines) between “accepting what is” and “creating what ought to be.” The feeling that “accepting what is” means accepting someone’s bullshit. I brought it up in therapy and we talked about it some. I snort laughed about an hour afterwards when I realized that what I was asking was for an answer that I must have missed in a class somewhere when the Serenity Prayer from recovery circles gets the whole thing:
Grant to us the serenity of mind to accept that which cannot be changed; courage to change that which can be changed, and wisdom to know the one from the other.
HA. If it was easy to know, if it was an “answer”, then it wouldn’t be WISDOM. And yeah it’s hard to know. The fact that I don’t or have to think really hard about it… yeah, that’s the gig.
I’ve also sent this page from “Screaming on the Inside: The Unsustainability of American Motherhood” by Jessica Grose to multiple people.
ETERNAL AMBIVALENCE IS KEY.
The feeling of two true things at once. Ugh. I so dislike having two true things that feel in conflict stay true and irreconcilable.
In this case the two true things: this world is beautiful. This world is not. We must accept reality. We must not accept bullshit. Joy is survival.
UUUUUGH. Sometimes I just want to wiggle out of all of this like an itchy wool sweater on a hot day.
All that to say. She’s on her second round of fever-ridden virus since we started daycare and might miss another day tomorrow. WE STARTED THERE WEEKS AGO. But the days when she does go, we all get to sink in and think a thought from beginning to end. I wish we’d done this sooner. It’s been so good for me.
Some Other Things I’ve Been Up To
I’ve been procrastinating on starting several essays that I want to write but it’s just as fun to avoid writing them. My poor editor. But Amanda Lewis is very cool if you ever need an editor who seems like she’ll let you have your own way and then 100% doesn’t take your bullshit but is gracious enough that it’s easier to swallow that she was right the whole time.
I let my brain try its hand at fiction again. I haven’t tried that since college. What a challenge!
Scrivener is cool. I don’t know why I didn’t realize till last week that it’s the perfect software for my “quilting with scraps” method of writing nonfiction. And bless them for not offering it in a Software As A Service (SAAS) format. Just one fee and you own it.
I bought Pippin bday presents and they were all developmentally inappropriate minus one music toy. Guess I’m just excited for the era where we make believe we are cooking in a mini kitchen.
I wrote a book. It’s with early readers. There isn’t a set release date yet but aiming or May or June. I will tell you more about it soon!
I revamped my Story Driven Wedding Course and Website. It’s now super cute and has resources and you should definitely share it with someone.
I’m trying to learn to meditate for real for real. Turns out, it helps with focus?! And staying on task?! It makes getting into flow easier?! IT WASN’T JUST A MARKETING CAMPAIGN?!
Makes me miss yoga with Theresa Shay in State College. I am very sure this entire strand of yoga is a white woman culty cult cult but also it’s very loving in the general practice of it so, ya know, definitely try it if you are in PA.
I Gathered Some Books for You
#classic. Here’s my bookshop list of parenting by way of words.
Thank you for reading. Without you, I definitely wouldn’t bother with any of this.
Love,
Dana