My Daughter / My Self - Part 1

She looked into the eyes of her daughter and saw herself, before. Her daughter looked into her eyes and saw only her mother, with no inkling of the future.

And as she revisited herself, she remembered when she was a young blossoming girl. Carefree and unknowingly full of unfathomed and undreamed dreams. Pigtails that danced on the sides of her head with each leap, turn and one-foot spin while playing double-dutch jump-rope and as she progressed through the 8 stages of hopscotch or was swiveling those little girl hips trying to keep the hoolah hoop from hitting the ground. What fun times - living in a neighborhood filled with the sounds of children laughing, playing, crying, answering or ignoring their parents’ voices from a distance.

Never wanting for a playmate because they were all around and always game to participate in some kind of physical, fun and daring activity. (Except if a child was on punishment and banished to the stoop or front porch while the other children ran around, not purposefully unsympathetic, but almost oblivious to their dejected compadre.) I don't know if it was worse to keep the child inside where they could only hear and imagine in their loneliness the joy that was being had outdoors by everybody but them, or to let them sit on the porch or stoop as onlookers who dared not move and could only wish with hungry eyes and hearts that they could join in the fun that was so apparent in the body language, sounds and faces of their neighborhood chums. Needless to say, we all knew that feeling at one time or another.

Her eyes smiled at her reflection as seen through the lens of her younger girl-self and a gently envious heart. She wished she could stay just a while longer. Oh, such powerfully sweet and innocent memories, so real it seemed she could feel herself touching them and yet so palpably elusive because she realizes that we can sentimentally take a mind journey into our past, but we can never actually go back. So, she looked away and released the vision to take its place among the celestial blessings that it truly was, of a time well shared and enjoyed on this earth, in its' time.

Then as her eyes once again landed upon her daughter, she held the gaze while the thought and image took a new shape. There was her daughter with this more than child-like but not quite a young woman look about herself. She knew what she was witnessing, and it made her catch her breath and raise a hand that landed on her pulsating heart. Not just because she saw the teen years of puberty galloping towards her daughter who was so unaware and so unassuming, but because her girl-child was so unaware and so unassuming of that galloping and what it meant. Because even as it thundered in the ears of her mother, she herself didn't notice or detect the sound that roared towards her. But then again, so goes the life of a pre/tween/teen, so self-absorbed that even the crashing of hoofs stampeding her way can go unheard. (lol)

In that moment of increasing clarity, this mother saw her daughter's budding body, the pouty look of lips that were now shining with the glow of a lightly shaded lip gloss, a hairstyle that was more fashionable than cute, shadowed eyes, and a walk that said I am coming towards and into my woman-self. Now don't misunderstand, this mom was not lacking in her attention to her daughter up until that time, nor was she lost to her daily transformation of growing up, but when she saw her full on, she was taken aback. She also knew with an exasperated and humorous certainty that there was going to be a lot of "Lord Have Mercy", "God Help Me", "I Think, No - Matter of Fact I Know This Child Has Lost Her Mind" and "Who Do You Think You Are Talking To?", just to name a few of the mantras and questions that would be forthcoming.

And while this almost hahaha thought was dancing in her head, she felt this unfamiliar sensation of an all at once kneading in her heart and spirit. If you were to ask her to identify this “thing”, she probably would say it was bittersweet joy mingled with longing, loss, anxiety, sadness and excitement. But Oooops, Hold on a minute!!! Because as is the complicated truth of women, what also became puzzling clear in this convoluted contradiction occupying that same space was that she found herself to be the focal point of her thoughts and feelings, even more so than her daughter who began as the central figure of her musings. And those heart-palpitations that she thought were reserved for her daughter claimed her as well.