weeds
Originally uploaded by katzeye
Recently, my daughter Kiera came out for a visit. It’s always fun to have her because she is a person who is nearly larger than life. By that, I mean she is full of personality and energy, and she is colorful, and sweet, and well, she fills up a room (no, Kiera, I am not saying you are fat!).
She has been a force to be dealt with since birth. Actually, even at birth. Once she was ready to enter the world, she was coming in a hurry. (I am talking about the delivery stage, here, she was one of my quickest deliveries, arriving after about 13- hours of labor, but once the delivery stage began, she was in a huge hurry to get out and see the world!!! I was in an alternative birth center, and I remember the staff running around trying to prepare for her once they realized she wasn’t going to wait any longer.
Then, she surprised me at how she could be so content, and so motivated, and so loving, even as an infant. I could put her to bed at night, wide awake, and she didn’t cry! (after the three boys, this was a very strange, new experience!). In the mornings, she would wake up and begin to sing to herself until I came to get her. And everyone got love from her, from infancy on.
As a toddler, she liked to go into her room, and change her clothes a few times a day. She’d come out in some truly creative get-ups, often borrowing from my closet!
She would sing, dance, coo, all day long. She took ballet as a pudgy pre-schooler, and danced on stage. She liked to create stories and draw pictures all day long.
When she was four, she asked me to teach her to read. I got out some books with repetitive patterns, and in a little while, she was reading everything she could get her hands on.
She liked to take the dog and pretend she was her baby. She’d bathe her and wrap her in a towel and rock her. I am pretty sure the dog really believed that was her mother.
Anyway, this is about our visit. When she is here, I notice the ways that we are different. She likes to be very busy, and always fills up her time with many activities, and talks to a lot of people, and is very extroverted. I, on the other hand, like to be not busy, not fill up my time, and not talk so much, and I am more introverted.
But I also noticed the ways in which we are the same. As we took a walk on the beach, over the sand dunes, we were talking, but we both kind of stopped talking and I realized that we were both being distracted by the weeds.
Yes, weeds.
We both had our cameras and soon we were photographing the weeds.
Now, keep in mind, at first glance, these were just ordinary weeds. At first glance, they seemed to all be a kind of dull shade of brown. Most people would have just passed them by. But not us.
I was really enjoying that there was someone else in the world who would find beauty in the weeds, and to know that it was my own daughter.
What a precious gift to have in common the ability to see beauty in the world around us.
I love you, Kiera!
