Six Years Ago

Six years ago I had two books out:

And I was working on a third:

Squish, Big T, Zoomboy and Chicken all looked as you see him in This Right Here.  We called Squish "Ladybug" then, because the true awesomeness of Squish had not yet been discovered, and we called Zoomboy, 'The Cave Troll' because he had us outnumbered by a ridiculous amount--and that was before he could even talk.  (I may have mentioned this before--he didn't talk AT ALL until I was home with him right before I had Squish.  His first words were, "Oh, mama, I like chocolate milk!  Chocolate milk is NUMMY!" which was damned awesome because I was about to call the frickin' school district and have him assessed!)

Dennis Quaid the cat was still alive, and my hair was really that color without dyeing it too often.

I was working full time, and I had not yet lost my faith in my job or my bosses or much of the world in general.

I had not yet had it restored by Elizabeth and Lynn and the wonderful people at Dreamspinner Press, either--but that's another story.  

And I had just started blogging, and throwing my thoughts out into the world.  

And one of the first people to respond was Roxie.

And she was wonderful.  She sent me advice and good humor and showed me that the world got even better and kinder and more exciting as one grew wiser in it.  She sent me rum balls and funny hats for my kids (and damn if I can retrieve ANY of these photos from my computer right now, because I've got some lovely ones!) and talked about her cats the same way I did, and...

I loved her.  

I had never met her, but I adored her.

And now, my kids and cats all look like this: 

And Roxie and I look much the same (I have more fat, more grays and more wrinkles-- she still looks fantabulous.)

And we are going to meet for real on Saturday, when I drag all the kids and none of the cats to visit with Mate's father in Portland over the weekend.  

I can not wait to meet Roxie.  In a summer that's looking to be pretty damned spectacular, this could be one of my BEST THINGS.  

I'm so excited, I won't be able to sleep:-)

The Dance of the Hours

So, we lived through Saturday.

It was tough-- it got to be a-hundred-gazillion-wasumba degrees on Saturday, and, well, that sort of sucketh right there.  But the kids got up on stage and the danced their hearts out--even Chicken, who was fading fast in the end.

Chicken actually had a very funny moment, speaking of fading fast.  The thing is, Chicken (like most of the people there) was only on stage for a couple of numbers.  A long adult jazz medley, and her own senior solo plus the senior dance.  But Chicken--being  helpful Chicken--made her self supremely useful and sort of adopted moving the little kids from spot A to spot B as the the recital went on.  That was her job.

Undead Demon Cat

Anyway, the night before the recital, she asked me if she was going to get a jacket--it's tradition.  Graduates get a red jacket, with their name on it.  (In her case, her jacket had "Sunshine" on it--she was called that because she never smiled.)  I told her, "Yeah, probably," which makes the fact that they had to drag her on stage for the presentation even funnier.  She told me, "They were like 'Get up there!  You know what comes next!' and I was like, 'But I have to get the kids in position!'"-- she was so busy being an awesome Chicken that she forgot to go up and take credit for being an awesome Chicken, and I sort of love that about her.

Her dance went well-- she did a long series of something-e'es' (hey, *I* never took dance--I just shoved my kids on the floor!) that were essentially a series of very artistic moving turns--they were supposed to be the end of the dance, and she was trying to make them until she went off stage.  She ran into a curtain instead, but she was so relieved it was over, she didn't really care.  I was trying to explain to her best friend (who was there to watch her perform) that she was going to be a horrible combination of whiny, bitchy, prickly, depressed, and amped at the end of the show.

Chicken, thrilled to have survived
recital.

"Why?" Stevie asked, and I shrugged.

"She really hates performing," I said.  "Being on stage is a big furry deal for her."

"Oh!"  And Stevie got it.  I didn't so much--I'd always loved performing.  Never really got to a lot--as I grew up and started to teach I realized that the secret of performing was commitment.  I was better at it as a teacher than an actress, I'll give you that, but I still understood--which is why I got a lot of character roles.  But Chicken was always too cynical and self-aware to commit, which is why her song and her dance and her costume--sort of a sweet little extemporaneous LOOKING, swaying to the wind hipster kind of affair-- really suited her well, and Stevie was prepared for the emotional tsunami that was Chicken after the recital.

But as for commitment?

Squish had it in spades.  Squish had the commitment thing down so well, that we all got to see her, in a white leotard and blue tutu, stamping her foot and pointing to tell the girl next to her where she was SUPPOSED to stand.  And Squish was lovely, too.  Her hair was braided on the sides and pulled back into a pony-tail, and she wore dresses and cute hats and...

*sniffle*

She was our Squish.  Fearless (except of bugs-- bugs scare her these days), opinionated, pretty, perfect, and, very often, dead wrong--but unafraid of being so, because she's only sure she's right--her self-esteem is not necessarily invested on that fact, it simply follows in the wake of her being awesome.

Still, I was not sure how to take my stepmom's assertion that she was just like the hippo from Fantasia.

Now see, my first reaction was probably like yours.  "She said my baby's WHAT?"

But then I started to think about it.  I mean, LOOK at those hippos.  They're all girl. There is no compromise, no "Oh, yes, I'm pretty for a HIPPO," or "Well, I shall move to minimize my hippo-ness, because it is unfashionable to have quite so much, arm, hippopotamus in one, erm, tutu, right?  I shall strive to be less of a hippopotamus to make the world feel better about my hips-that-art-part-o-us."

She does not worry that she is not pretty enough for the crocodile, and she shouldn't.  She is ALL woman, and that crocodile does his damnedest to hold her up, because she deserves no less.  She executes all her moves, and lets the creatures around her execute theirs, expecting no less than perfection.

She IS perfection, and if the foundation of the surroundings can't take so much awesomeness, well, that's just IT'S problem, because our little hippo has gotta dance.

See-- THAT'S the way I think my stepmom meant it.

She meant that nothing was going to stop Squish, no skinny stick man crocodile, no spotlight usurping elephant, no nothing.  Squish was going to be the queen, and the prettiest and the best damned ballerina, and the one who by golly knew where the spot was.

So, well, I didn't take exception, because that IS my Squish.

If I find out she meant my baby was fat, I'll be pissed.

Zoomboy and Squish, happy.

Anyway-- that was Squish.  There was also Zoomboy, who FOR ONCE looked like he not only knew where he was going on stage but he also seemed to approve of getting there, and it was a pretty successful moment.

At the end, I was so proud I cried.  Their teacher was so proud, she almost cried.  And my parents and Mate's mom and my friend Wendy watched the entire spectacle-- all five hours of it-- and said, "That was damned entertaining."  They even laughed or were invested in the kids that weren't theirs.  (Well, who wouldn't be invested in a bunch of boys dancing to "I'm sexy and I know it."  You haven't laughed until you've seen a two-year old put his hand over his head and shake his tush to "Wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle.")

And we barely survived the heat.

Big T--excited about going camping.

It was all right.  And Sunday morning, I got to throw them all on my parents front lawn and send them to play with grandma for three days.  I'll see them tomorrow, and I won't have NEARLY enough work done to show for their absence (well, Mate and I DID spend Sunday going to the movies and going out to dinner like it was our anniversary on Father's Day or something... wait...)

Undead Demon Cat, bereft at
Chicken's absence.

And we'll be all rested up to rock hard with Roxie in Portland!  Roxie sent me some suggestions for what to do on Saturday, when we'll be running around with her and Bucky.  I sent them to Mate for discussion, but, seriously?  It's like the dear woman read our diary.  I'm SO EXCITED I'M BUZZING!  I'm going to meet Roxie, and I already love her to death!!!  Yay!

So, like I said, we survived--and I, for one, am never going to think of Dance of the Hours with anything but fondness, for hippos and other dancing creatures:-)

Quick, look at the pretty!

Chicken, Zoomboy, and Squish all have their recital today.  Now there are going to be a thousand people working backstage and they have been working sixteen hour days for the last two weeks to make this happen, and I in no way want to minimize the effort of the mothers and volunteers and the kids themselves, but I have to say this.

Holy blessed Jebus, am I bushed.

Seriously-- between Chicken's graduation and her senior recital, plus the other kids' pressing need to do frivolous things like eat and have clean laundry and maybe not be bored out of their skulls, I have spent what feels like a week going to the store.  That's it.  Just shopping.  New leotards, new tights, new shorts for gymnastics, snacks, ice for the snack bar (it's a communal intermission snackbar-- I also bought cookies) flowers for the kids, stuffed animals for the kids snacks for my purse because the damned thing runs 4 1/2 hours and if I don't have some beef jerky in there I will be jumping the line for some goddamned cookies... just... just STUFF.  I have spent a week shopping for STUFF.  Everything from needles and thread to stitch sparkles to Chicken's costume (which took me a day) to hair pins and hair elastics and... and...

The mind boggles.

Or at least MY teeny tiny little mind boggles.

Now in the past I've done a really thoughtful post about recital, but seriously-- if you're as bored hearing about it as I am about LIVING it, I think we've had enough thoughtful posts.  Last year, I sat by myself and texted Mary in a panic.  HELP ME.  I'M BORED.  SEND PORN AND BEER.  Well, still waiting for the beer from Hawaii, but she DID pony up with the porn, (okay-- not REALLY porn... ) and in that spirit, I'm going to post some pictures of rehearsal and a whole lot of boy-pretty.  Quick!  Look at the pretty!  That way you'll forget that I've spent two weeks doing the I-live-for-my-children mom thing and have lost all pretense of a personality, job, or social life!

(Okay-- I lied a little about the social life.  Chicken and I did get to have lunch with Z.A. Maxfield and her LOVELY daughter, Zoe.  We talked about writing and children and dieting--of which she is far more successful than I.  Anyway-- okay.  So I cheated a little on my martyr-mother agenda.  Sue me.  Doesn't she look pretty in the picture?)

So here we go.  Be distracted by the pretty.  I'm gonna go watch my perfect children be beautiful in a sweaty auditorium.  This time I won't be alone btw-- all of the granny-and-auntie-come-latelies are going to be there, as well as Chicken's best friend (whom you have seen in pictures before!) Stevie.  So this is my last chance to gawk at pretty until tomorrow as well!  Enjoy!

Babble

So my tweeple, Logan, sent me the sweetest (and most intimidating) tweet.  He told me he "measured time by when my books came out."

(((O.O)))

See what I mean?  About sweet and intimidating?

Because it's like marking time with holidays (and the reasons parents always go into heart failure as the winter solstice rolls around.)  If the thing you're doing produces a memory, and people are really looking forward to that memory, it had better be A DAMNED GOOD MEMORY!

But the fact is, I've found I do the same thing.  When a book comes out, I become obsessed with checking up on it.  Is it selling?  More importantly, do people like it?  If they don't like it, WHY don't they like it?  And is it something I can live with?  (By the way?  Those last questions are usually asked three to four times a day as I'm editing the book.  Why will people dislike this one?  Would I change it? The fact is, before I even submit the work to an editor, the answer to "Would I change it, even if I knew people would hate this part?" is "NO! It's my work, and I stand by it, DAMMIT!", right?  You know, in case you all thought my spine really had drilled it's way out my ass and started burrowing to Australia.  I just have to ask myself that question, or I can't be sure I'm putting my best work out there.  However, good feedback or bad, it is nice to have your own suspicions about human reaction confirmed-- it means your perception of the universe is close to accurate.)

So either way, I mark my days by books.  When my deadline is to finish one, when my deadline is to edit, and, of course, the excitement of release day, and the thrill of being read.  I mean, that's where I spend my days, so I expect that to be how I mark my time.

But when someone else marks their time by my books?  That is one hell of a responsibility.  It IS. Remember the crappy birthday where you failed a test at school and the kids made fun of you and your parents got the restaurant wrong where you were supposed to go and all you got was socks?  (Okay, even if you never had a birthday like that, can you imagine it?)  Well, if I'm responsible for someone's big calendar day and I fuck that up, THAT feels AWFUL!

So yes.  Even though I keep putting out books, and even though I'm getting more sanguine (and not in the hunt-you-down-and-kill-you way, either) about reviews and reviewers, I still stress about releasing a book.  Yes, I know that some of my tropes (or my unorthodox treatment of them) will bother people.  Yes, I know, no book can please everybody.  Yes, I even know that some of the stuff I do as a writer (writing about pain, for example!) automatically eliminates potential audience.  But when I make choices as an author, whether people love the choice or not, I ALWAYS worry about that choice being the best one I can possibly make for the characters and the theme.  Hey, I don't even always like the things my people do, but if they're being true to their characters?  Writers aren't kidding around when they say they have no choice.  Characters really do dictate the course of a good work--and even if people don't like the character, nothing can or should change that.

And that goes for everything I write.

Last October, Mary Calmes and I had a horrifying realization.  It shouldn't have caught us by surprise but it really did.  We realized that the tiny (2000 words or less) short that we'd written for a Dreamspinner promotion was going to get rated on websites like GoodReads.  Oh my God!  It was free.  It was promotional.  It was short!  (Nobody rates short fiction well.  It's a truism of genre fiction as a whole.)  Why would people go and rate it?

It didn't matter.  They did.  And Mary and I both cringed as we watched our SHORT stories take critical hits for no other reason than that they were short.  The one consolation--and it has been my consolation during all critical hits--is that I had done my best work.  Yes. You Can't Make an Omelet is just a playful short goofy piece of fiction, but I'd done my best on it, and so had Mary on her fiction piece.

It's one of those moments where you realize you have a responsibility to your craft, because part of your craft is connecting with human beings, and you want to treat your fellow humans in the best way possible.  You know you can't please everybody-- it's like a family reunion.  Somewhere out there is an uncle who is going to disapprove of your job (and let's face it, in my family, everybody disapproves of my job at the moment) and a cousin is going to disapprove of your politics and your parents are going to disapprove of how you raise your children--but you dressed everybody up in their Sunday best, made the kick ass potato salad, kissed and hugged everyone, even the people who are about to spend all day telling you you're a fuck-up, and you have done your best to connect with your kin in the most civilized way possible.

And just like a book release, you're going to be excited about the reunion, and apprehensive about it, and you're going to hope, really hope, that your beautiful, splendid children and perfect spouse will get the love and attention they deserve.  (And, once again, this works for me, because my kids and husband are MUCH more popular at family reunions than I am.  I'm sort of embarrassing, really.)  Anyway-- THAT'S what it's like to mark your time by releasing a little bit of your soul into the public every so often.

So that brings us to Boxer Falls.

I love writing for Boxer Falls.  I don't have a lot of time to do it, and my time seems to just get less and less available, but I love the idea of a collaborative effort.  Boxer Falls is a serial soap opera, in which a different author writes  different episode each week.  There are stock characters and a LOT of sex and melodrama and angst and humor and basically, a lot of good writers showcased back to back, doing (I hope!) their best work.

So anyway-- yes.  Sidecar is two long painful weeks away-- but on Friday?  We've got Boxer Falls, and sometimes, between family reunions and birthdays and Christmases, there's a date to dinner and the movies--and it's still a special occasion.

Saturday Night Cleanup

Okay-- wow.  Chicken is not the only one who has had an eventful week.  She made it through graduation, and then went on to dance rehearsal, and then went on to grad night until five in the morning, and then went to dance rehearsal at five at night and then tonight, we all went to my parents' house for a family dinner

*whew*

So, yeah.  That's a lot! And Mate and I have been panting to keep up with her, and with everything, and really?  All I have to share with you are the scattered bits of here and there, as I tried to keep an even keel.  Let's start, shall we?







 First of all, seeing Chicken graduate (or, more specifically, since they weren't there, seeing her gown and sash) made Zoomboy and Squish dream of great things.  Here they are, asking me to call their names so they can cross the stage and get their diplomas.  The first time Squish did this (not pictured because I didn't know what she had planned) she bowed and thanked everybody for help getting her through college.  Re: my last post?  That made me pretty proud-- she's dreaming big!

Second of all, uhm, ignore the messy house here-- yeah, it was actually clean on Thursday, since there was a chance relatives might want to come by, but now?  Well, the little kids actually (get this--it's a shocker) EMPTIED OUT THEIR BACKPACKS in order to facilitate that whole summer vacation thing that starts at 12:30 p.m., Monday afternoon.  I'm looking forward to that, actually-- but I'm scary-busy, and I'm not sure how much work I'll get done!

And next?  Okay-- everything you ever wanted to know about Zoomboy is in this carefully arranged set up of stuffed primates--they ARE paired off by family, genus, and species, why do you ask?  (And yeah-- they do sort of look like monkeys at a singles mixer-- what is it about primates that make them always look horny?  I'm just asking!)







And finally, a bit about me and politics.

Don't ask me how-- but my friend and I got on the subject of politics--and why I should or should not be involved in them.  She thought I should--I am articulate, I am informed (at least in this particular area) and I am reasonable.  I thought she was crazy.  She couldn't see why I'd doubt myself.  And I thought about it, and when it's said and done, it all comes down to this story.  Now, I think I've told this story in another part of the blog, so this is the boiled down version of it right here--probably not the most accurate, but the most helpful for the purpose of illustration, if you know what I mean.  So here goes.

Not long before I was forced to leave my old job, I had a scheduling difficulty.  I was scheduled for 2nd, 4th, and 6th period, and, as you all probably know, that COMPLETELY negates the purpose of being part time.  Less time to get paid, the same amount of time at school.  So anyway, we had like, four days before we were supposed to start, and I went to my principal and said, "Whine, whine, whine," and he said, "Okay, Amy--you fix it."

So, I went to the counselor's office and found a counselor who was still working on schedules and I said, "Whine, whine, whine," and he said, "Here--that should never have been okayed.  If we move this person here, and you here, voila.  Fixed."  And I said, "Yay!  I shall tell the person that this impacted, and if she's got a problem with this, we can find another fix!"

And so I did, and I told her that we were going to do this instead, and she looked a little upset and she said we could probably manage it.

And the next day I got called into the principal's office.  He looked at me and said, "Amy, this is my fault.  I looked at you and I said, 'Fix it.'"

And I said, "I did!"

And he said, "Yeah, but you should have gone to your department head and told him to fix it, and then he would have told the counselor and then told the person whose schedule you impacted."

I said, "You told me to fix it!"

And he said, "Well, your department head is all mad because he felt like you went over his head."

And I said, "You told me to fix it!"


And he said, "Yes, but the person whose schedule you impacted felt like you were bullying her."

And I said, "YOU TOLD ME TO FIX IT!"

And he said, "Yes.  You're right.  It's my fault,  I told you to fix it, and you did exactly what I told you to, but there's a whole chain of command thing..."

"Which I ignored because you told me to fix it."

"Yes.  Totally my fault.  Don't do it again."

"Well I won't if you don't tell me to fix it!"

"Okay.  Well, I'm glad we had this little talk.  Next time I'll fix it myself."

And then I left.  But seriously, people, THAT'S why I shouldn't be involved in politic

Dreams For Our Daughters

It was one of those moments where you feel stupid.

I was at rehearsal for recital-- Squish, Zoomboy and Chicken are all in combinations of dance and gymnastics, and if you've been here for a couple of years, you know that recital is a huge thing.  For two weeks five of the six of us are completely consumed by dance, and this year is Chicken's senior recital, where she does a solo.  Anyway, I was looking at the crowd of parents there, and I realized that one woman--in her twenties, but she looks older-- was someone I knew.  In fact, she was someone who had graduated from the dance program maybe seven, eight years ago.  Seven or eight years ago, she'd been lovely--her spine as straight as an arrow, her body solid, muscular and so damned graceful she made you cry.

She's on her second child now, and her first isn't a picnic.  He makes Zoomboy look like a turtle on 'ludes he's so hyperactive, and all of the gymnastics teachers know to catch him when he starts to run. I don't know much about her husband--which doesn't mean much, since I only see her one, maybe two hours a week, and she's always busy.

But I saw her--I mean, really saw her and realized that this woman who slouched, and who looked thirty when she was in her mid twenties,  had once made me cry with a stunning, impossible grace, when she was as old as Chicken is now.

And I had a sudden car wreck of other memories, one on top of another, starting with her, dancing fit to break your heart, and layering into...

Waitressing, over twenty years ago.  They still allowed smoking in restaurants, and there was a couple in the smoking section, both of them smoking.  He was in his fifties, and had only a few of his teeth.  She had just turned twenty one, and had lost a few of hers.  She was ordering a margarita-- was, in fact on her second--and was seven months pregnant.

The news that alcohol was bad for unborn children had really just gotten to be a big thing in the late eighties--it apparently hadn't hit wherever this pair of newlyweds had come from.  I delivered the margarita (they weren't my table--someone else had asked me to take the drink for them) and the girl giggled.  "Yeah, well, I know I'm not supposed to, but I'm twenty-one today.  So it's my first drink."  She winked.  "My first legal drink."  And then she took a hit of her cigarette and I walked back into the kitchen.

One of the other servers was back there, looking at the table in absolute horror.  "How can you even serve them?" she asked, aghast.

I shrugged, thinking about the girl's giggle.  "Well," I said thinking, "in the first place, I'm fooling myself if I think that's the only drink she's had or will ever had, pregnant or otherwise.  In the second place," I looked at her again, dressed up in her best maternity shirt, her hair sprayed within an inch of its life, and sighed.  "In the second place, look at her.  This is it.  She's twenty-one, and this, right here, in Fridays, is as good as her life is going to get."

They couldn't argue.

And then the third memory, one from my early days teaching at my old school.  There was a really dedicated (if terrifyingly homophobic) percussion coach who had coached a group of kids that were normally absolute nightmares, and they got to perform in a rally.

They were wonderful.  Amazing.  Stupendous.

And then I got a look at the individual faces of the kids as they marched away and I had a horrible, horrible realization.  This was it.  These were the kids who thought graduating from high school was the be all and end all of their achievements.  Their parents thought so too--they were willing to bully, lie, and enable their kids through every hoop thrown at them, and then blame the teachers when their kids didn't have the wherewithal for the next step.  And here, this moment in their teens--this was the most beautiful, the most perfect thing they would ever do.

And that to me seemed awful.

Now don't get me wrong--I had some kick ass moments in high school.  I was in a marching band that won awards and took entire competitions.  I was in plays that went to competitions and put on performances and it was amazing.  So was junior college.  So was college.

But nowhere in all of that did I ever hit a moment and think, "It will never get better than this.  I am as beautiful/brilliant/talented/happy as I will ever be."  There was always something new to learn, something new to do, something new to plan.  When I was getting married, and everyone was stressing about the ceremony, I was more worried about being married than the actual wedding.  When I was pregnant, I learned the basics of labor and delivery, but that was never the scary part.  Being home with the actual baby--now that was fucking terrifying.  For me it was never about the golden, shining, perfect moment--it was always about the promise of joy and sorrow, fear and excitement, failure and accomplishment and learning that went on beyond that moment.

There is always something more to have, learn, or be.

So, all that considered, I have sort of let Chicken's graduation sneak up on me.  I've known it's been coming, but I haven't (much like Big T's) gotten overwhelmed or (too) verklempt or all gushy and squeaky.  I've been mostly full of wonder.  "Oh yeah-- you get to do that.  That's awesome!"  Most of my fear has gone beyond the "big day" and has traveled into the big scary-- taking Chicken to school in San Diego and LEAVING MY BABY BEHIND.

But tonight, when I realized that the struggling, rapidly aging young mother I'd known was that same bright, shining girl I remembered, something else hit me.

I was excited about graduation--still am--and am worried about getting a card and about deciding (with her input) on the right graduation present, and making sure the relatives all get here and we get to the ceremony on time and she gets her dance recital board up and all of those important things.  That's a big deal.  It is.  I won't lie.

But it's not the only deal.

After graduation, she's got her recital solo.  After her recital solo we've got a quick trip to Portland.  After that we've got ten days in Hawaii.  After that she's starting summer school.  After that she's moving to San Diego.  After that she's... oh holy Christ.  The sky is the limit.  I've spent her entire middle school and high school career telling her that yeah, she should have fun in middle school and high school, but, to quote a popular catch phrase, "It gets better."

And it has gotten better.  And it promises to get even better still.

And I've lived my life for her and her siblings trying to show them that.  When I was going to school trying to get my master's degree, that was part of my motivation:  learning didn't just stop.  When I dropped out of the program I tried to make my message that my children were my priorities--and she seems to have picked up on that too.  As I embarked on my writing career, one of the things I told her and her brother (and my students for that matter) was that being in your thirties or your forties, having your family, that didn't mean that your brain just froze.  Your best years didn't end with high school or college or having a family--your best years were the years you made your best.  You didn't stop learning, you didn't stop becoming, just because you reached a magic age or a place of complacency.

Chicken knows this.  Thursday is going to be a big day-- that's no lie.  She's got plans and plans and plans, and by the time we get her on Friday morning from her grad night activity, she's going to sleep for a week.  But it's what's after Thursday that she's dreaming about, and I'm proud of that.  Pomp and circumstance are great for a day--but they do not take place of the things you can do your whole life after to make living a joy.

I was not thinking about all the cuts to colleges, to women's health, to discrimination laws, to women's rights in general when I taught my daughter this--I was just thinking about the things I believed most about life, but now that she's about to enter the world as it is, I'm forced to wonder.

That one girl who was bright and shining, those girls in the drum core who had their moment in the sun, that poor woman who thought a margarita on her 21st birthday was living large-- what dreams did their mothers have for them?  Did their mothers dream of them in college?  Dream of them doing something poetic and lovely?  Dream of them doing something amazing with their lives as they unfolded?  Was becoming a mother and finding a good man the limit of their dreams?  Did someone tell them they couldn't go to college because girls like them didn't go?  Were they told they could go, but only until they married?  Or maybe the low expectations were a little more vague than that.  Maybe it was the sort of condescension  I was familiar with: Yeah, we knew you were going but we didn't think you'd graduate!  Maybe they were told the truth-- that even if they went to college it wasn't going to help them make any more money.  Men got paid more anyway because they're the providers, and women are just there until they give birth so they don't really need any more money.  (I honestly heard a congressman say this--it made me wonder how many parents tell their children that same thing.)

And there I was, watching children dancing, wondering when, as a country, we'd stopped dreaming beautiful dreams for our daughters.  When did we start believing they had less of a right to things like equal wages and college education and reproductive freedom than their male counterparts.  When did they start to believe, once again, that old lie that their best and most perfect function was as an oven, and that their voices didn't count when raised in defense of the daughters they'd birthed?

And for a moment I despaired.

And then Chicken got up to dance her solo.  She wasn't really dancing it-- she was more "walking through it" so that the person in charge of the music knew what to do to the track when she really was dancing it.  While she was "walking" her dance the second time, her little sister saw her, and wanted to join in.  She stayed just far enough back not to get in Chicken's way, but Squish copied every move she made.  She wanted to be just like her big sister, just like her big sister (who has told me this so it's not just hubris and vanity) got her willingness to dream big, from me.

And I watched them and cried.

Because that there is our answer.  We teach our daughters to dream big by not killing our own dreams.  We teach our daughter to dream big by teaching them that they are more important than vanity.  We teach our daughters to dream big by showing them which dreams matter.

We teach our daughter to dream big by dreaming ourselves.















My daughter is graduating on Thursday.  Oh Goddess, of all my prayers hear this one.  May she never stop learning.  May she find love and live through heartbreak.  And may the dreams that make her happiest be the ones that come true.