mothers and daughters

thank you.

laundered

Well, I've got some good news.

I found my cell phone!!

(In the washing machine).

So, rather than focusing on that which I've lost with my found phone, I've set a timer, and I plan to devote the next seven minutes to basking on the bright side (five... four... three... two... go!)

1. My cell phone is clean.
2. Now, I have an excuse for why I don't answer my phone.
3. I can switch to a local number.
4. I can save $50/mo and spearhead a payphone revolution.
5. Um, I don't even get cell reception on this island.
6. In case you were wondering, I can confirm (for the second time), that this Motorola is not water resistant.
7. One less thing to do while driving.
8. I can stop looking for my phone.
9. Maybe I'll finally start checking pockets before washing. And maybe I won't.

Five... four... three... two... one.

Now, THAT was fun.

joy's gift

I just finished reading the book I thought perhaps I came to this island to write.

It came into my life the day before last as a gift from a gift -- from Joy. Her path and my own intersected the day before that -- just one week after she and her family arrived here. She knew and I knew without a word, that the hushed melodies that called each of us to this time and this place were harmonious. Her story and my story, her song and my song -- although different -- are uncannily similar. The rhythm and tone and resonance of her heart, which has also leaned like the head of Spring's tulips toward the light of love, grace, simplicity and freedom, beats in concert with my own.

In this Lenten season, which for me began with a decision to stand hard and fast on the bedrock of Love, I have received gift after gift after gift. I thank You. As I have stripped, surrendered, let go and lost pieces of myself, I have retrieved, renewed, rediscovered and newly uncovered pieces of me.

Thank you.

You have filled me once again with hot cereal, granted me courage and serenity to shed the shell I have outgrown, to stand in the rain and to make room for something new. You have looked into my eyes, reached into my heart and in the midst of confusion and doubt, You have not only assured me that I am okay, but I am loved. From ashes, You have indeed called forth beauty. You have helped me to see a steadfast sun. On the heels of despair, You have brought forth Joy.

And Joy, she lent me the book I read today -- a simple book that articulated the story of the last year in my life with refreshing succinctness and breathtaking clarity. It infused words where I had few and attached meaning to that which I could not fully grasp on my own.

As I've listened to the rhythm of my heart, it has nudged me toward abstruse silence and solitude... to an island. Yet in my heart's recesses, I have sensed companionship. I have sensed the presence of seen and unseen partners in this pas de deux. Troi. Quatre. Cinq... dans ce pas de beaucoup et un peu (pardon my French, s'il vous plait).

Over fifty years ago, a woman sat and reflected on a beach much like the one right outside my window. She collected the shells I have collected these last 215 days. She listened to them, looked to them, and wrote down a movement in their symphony. In her song. In my song. In Joy's song. And I imagine, in yours too.

Like all good things, I know the gift I received earlier this week was not just for me. Today, I partook. And I was rapt. And I wept. And I was blessed (thank you). And now, with the open hands and heart with which I received this gift, I release it to you.

Anne Morrow Lindberg's, Gift from the Sea.

If it is time, and you have not yet been met or been moved by this book, I pray you will pick it up, pour it over and then pass it on. And if it found you some time in your past and its season has returned, I pray you will scour your shelves, refresh your spirit, and let it speak to you again.

It is written. I'm relieved.

A love story was penned in the ancient of days. It has been told, and shared, and retold, and it will continue to be. I feel peace in today's assurance that although I am often -- gratefully -- in solitude on this island, I am not alone. With grace and good pleasure, I may rest and I may dance in this melodious sea of the known and unknown with partners seen and unseen. And in so doing, I may receive and release its boundless gifts.

The tide is rising, and it feels good.

four

Late this afternoon, a little boy whom I've never met stopped

me at the grocery deli case to give me a gift...

thank you.

q & Q

Maya and I had an interesting exchange over lunch today.

It stemmed from a portion of an exercise in Michael Gelb's book, How to Think Like Leonardo DaVinci. In it, Gelb proposes a simple twist on the question each of my children have heard countless times before. The conversation that ensued the posing of said question has gotten me thinking. And thinking. It went something like this:

ME: How was school today, Love?

MAYA: Good.

ME: What questions did you ask?

MAYA: Wait, huh? Wait... um, wait... what questions?

ME: Yes. What questions did you ask at school today?

MAYA: Wait, pardon? Wait... I don't understand. What QUESTIONS?

ME: Yes, Love. What questions did you ask at school today?

MAYA: I didn't ask any questions at school today.

ME: Hmmm (pregnant -- nine months pregnant -- pause). Well...

MAYA: (heavy sigh)

ME: How do you learn at school if you don't ask questions?

MAYA: Well (heavier sigh, eye-roll and incredulous stare), Mrs. B just asks US questions, and we tell her the right answers...


I was shocked into cold, wet, sloppy silence by the ice-water bath of her response. It ruffled my feathers, stirred my pot and raised more questions I opted to keep to myself.

1. Why didn't my kindergartner ask questions at school today?
2. What is kindergarten, anyway? The garden of children, right?
3. Since when did gardening become about the answers, especially the "right" ones?
4. What exactly are the "right" answers?
5. What are the questions?
6. When did kindergarten shift from children asking questions to children answering them?
7. What if the questions they're answering aren't "right?"
8. Can the "wrong" questions ever yield the "right" answers?
9. What happens if my children have different questions than the ones being asked?
10. If my daughter went to school to learn today, but after she returned home, she couldn't recall asking a single question all day, what am I teaching her?

I've often heard and recited the adage if you don't like the answers you are getting, perhaps you should consider asking different questions.

Questions.

I invested most of my formal education, and I've spent much of my life thus far trying to figure out answers to questions. Yet tonight, most of my questions remain. I have scarcely found courage to rest in these questions. But as I search my heart, my spirit and my soul and consider the monuments in my personal history -- the times when I learned and trusted the most -- when I was most enthused, most alive, most inspired, most inspiring, most confident, most connected and most at peace -- I was not answering questions; I was asking them.

What if the power, the pleasure and the peace of this journey -- our journey -- primarily reside in the questions? What if the questions are the means and the end? What do I do with that? What do we do with that? What can we do with that? What would happen if I redirected my oft-depleted parental energy from answering the daily onslaught of kid-questions to cultivating greater curiosity and courage of my own? What would happen if I shifted my home curriculum from rewarding the "right" answers to nurturing the quest for more questions? What would happen if I arrested my own search for answers altogether and focused on finding more questions instead? What if...


MAYA: I don't want to talk about this anymore, Mom. May I please be excused?

ME: Hmmm? Um... Pardon? Uh... I'm not sure, Love. I guess.... Um, yes. Yes you may.

nine thousand words