Garden by Annie Leppala
To my 2-year old daughter,Now you can give me directions. You can tell me where to sit, when to hold you, and, naturally, when to let go. When I ask you to do something, you may occasionally concede, or you may renegotiate, or when it has to do with fruit, you will beg, borrow and steal, until you get your way.
The days are no longer long. They are exhausting. They are infuriating. They are pretty damn interesting.
We play games. We count to 10 but skip a few numbers. We make surprised and then grumpy faces. You run towards me and fall into my arms and then you run away.
You test me all day long. What will I do when you stick your hand in the coffee grinds? What will I do when you lie down on your stomach on the base ball field and lick the dirt? What will I do when you repeatedly kick the dog in your wellingtons?
You are beginning to prefer order. The napkin on the lap. The spot to be cleaned up. The yellow shirt over the blue one. Mama's fork. Zora's fork. You are making sense of this busy world and our place in it.
I appreciate that. Your struggle to learn. To name. To carve the lines between here and there, me and you. And it makes me sad, too. Because with every new knowledge acquisition there grows something more and more distinctly you and less about the blurry, messiness of us.
And still, our relationship, one could say, is deepening. The time we spend with each other feels not unlike the time of new lovers, eager to learn everything about the other in that no-stone-left-unturned kind of way. A time where we really do prefer each other's company to anyone else's. A shared intimacy of climbing over one another, rubbing noses together, and giggling a lot.
My love, there is space, too, here between us for more. And that is what I look forward to. In the years to come. As you become you and I, perhaps, become myself again. I look forward to reaching out towards you. Taking your hands. Showing you the things that make me sing from day to day or even, just that once in a lifetime moment. And learning what it is that does the same for you. I will wait. I will wait, my love. For what there is to come.
love,
mom
