Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Blast from the Past

Every so often, I'm hit with a wave of nostalgia that pretty much kicks my ass.

When the girl was small, she was pretty well-behaved.  She only wrote on a door one time with a crayon; she didn't have a tendency to just rip stuff up or break things.  The only real juvenile delinquent-type defacement she did was writing in books.  I don't know why she did it - if she saw me making notes in my books, if it was just a fun way to put pen to paper - but there are many, many, MANY books in our house that have little examples of her Banksy skills. 

The fun/bittersweet thing is, I never know when I'll run across these little madeleines.   I know, for example, that there are pages of my torn apart copy of Joy of Cooking that have her etchings [I'm the one who, somehow, managed to tear off BOTH the front and back covers of this book, as well as several pages of the index; if I ever need to make yucca, I'm in trouble], but I don't know which pages. Looking up a recipe for salad dressings will find me tracing my finger alone a series of shakily formed circles, focusing more on them than on the correct proportions of olive oil to vinegar.

Lately, I've been re-reading Emma [my favorite Jane Austen] before bed. I love falling asleep to the gentle, perfectly wrought words.  The other night, as I was nearing the end of the book, I turned a page to be greeted with some of the girl's early efforts in critical theory:



I know - some lines on yellowed pages.  Nothing monumental or earth-shattering; these aren't proto-Picassos. But they took my breath away, took me back so I could see, with startling clarity, her dark little head bent over the book, a look of concentration on her sweet face, pen gripped awkwardly, making her mark.

I'm happy we had one child. I love her more than my own life. I'm thrilled to get to know the person - the adult - she's becoming. But there are moments when I miss, with a ferocity that surprises me, the baby she used to be.

11 comments:

  1. Neither of the girls was a property defacer. The boy though? Oh ho ho this one here has made me buy stock in magic erasers. But. Last weekend, the oldest girl, 12, was on the floor playing with the boy's toys by herself. She was talking to the men and making Spiderman fly and it was such a flashback. I have NO clue why she was playing -- maybe she'd started playing with him but he wandered off and she kept going. I don't know. But I'm glad I got to see it.

    And that's a pretty good A.

    ReplyDelete
  2. God, yes. Their fuzzy little cannonball heads.

    And Emma's my favorite JA, too.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Speaking of "gentle, perfectly wrought words," could this post be any more perfect? OMG. I laughed AND got teary. Sharing...

    ReplyDelete
  5. I absolutely love this post. So wish we could keep them little forever...

    ReplyDelete
  6. (sigh)I can relate. When my teenager mispronounces big words she's never heard spoken aloud, I remember the toddler asking me for some more "lemonlade." I love the young woman she is now, but I miss the little girl that she was. Thanks for the smile and the tear!

    ReplyDelete
  7. What sweet little nuggets to find!

    ReplyDelete
  8. I already have books that CJ has "made his mark" on. It's so weird to think that there will be a time that he might not be exceedingly proud of those marks.

    ReplyDelete
  9. My son put the hurt on pop up books, scratch and snif, and books that played sounds. I loved when he was cute and cuddly!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Oh yes. I know the feeling well.

    ReplyDelete

Every time you comment, I get a lady boner.