"Dancing Irish"

Here is a strange one -

Last night our three oldest children walked on stage at Chandler Hall in front of a couple hundred people and danced.

They danced.  Well, Jonah and Caroline danced.  Cecily kind of bounced up and down with the idea of dance filling her head.

The most notable part of this, for me, is the turning of the corner from parent-and-child, to just child.  Standing alone, being whoever child is when they are not parent-and-child.  They were doing something I don't know how to do.  What must it feel like to a an accountant when their child becomes a cardiac surgeon?  I know their little brains grew inside of me, but today the world grows inside of them and they decide where they will fit in it.  I taught Jonah to read and now Jonah teaches me about the salinity level of a certain part of the ocean and how that affects a particular fish, or that Hatshepsut is the Lady Pharaoh who ruled in the Eighteenth Dynasty of Ancient Egypt.

The thing is, they are snipping the apron strings on me and I'm not quite sure if I keep handing them the scissors, or if I should be, or if homeschooling means they're really more like apron-tie-down-straps and I should be sharpening the machete in preparation for my children's looming adulthood.  The mysteries of parenting only become more mysterious with time.

On another note - Cecily might have been converted to the stage last night.  The audience went crazy for her little wave as the Irish dancers skipped their way off stage.  Later, during intermission, Cecily ran across the stage looking for someone and about two thirds of the way across she stopped in a sudden realization that the wild cheering, clapping and hollering of the entire room was for her.  Heaven opened up a permanent spotlight on a four-year-old that only days before was paralyzed in uncontrollable tears at the prospect of doing her little dance just in rehearsal.  Somehow she overcame her fear the following day and waltzed on stage just as confidently as any mouseketeer in their day.

I filmed at the dress rehearsal so I could get closer and not be bothered with it during the actual performance so you won't get the full sense of the audiences reaction to our local Irish Troop.  But they were well received.  Gloria Bowden, who you will see holding Cecily's hand, is the genius behind it.  And Southern Virginia University is the "genius of small," which fosters a connection with community and students that will bless our family forever.



p.s.
while I write this Cecily is trying to teach Ewan to Irish Dance.  Her lessons go like this - "See Ewan, skip, two, three, then switch."
Ewan starts, back to the wall saying "skip, three three," then falls down and she chastises him, "No, like this . . ."  While all her moves look remarkably similar to bouncing.

Giving Up Governance of a Door

   

Sarah has always been at the heart of me . . . the center of friends that come to you without sharing the blood of you.

We grew up in different homes.  She says the door was governed on her home.  It opened at the will of the parent, deciding who to let in and when.  She says the door at my house barely had hinges, barely had a door - it opened before it was knocked.  There were always people in and out with the blessing of whatever parent may or may not be home.

Sarah syas she wanted her grown up house to be like my childhood house.  And strangely, at the time she told me that only a few years ago, my grown up house was more like her childhood house.  When it came to the neighborhood children, Sarah invited and I deliberated.

Not so much anymore.  We have children on our street.  They eat at my table, they play on my porch, they wait at the french doors for Jonah and Caroline to finish math, they build huts in the woods at the end of the road, they play behind our garage, they build villages with Jonah's legos, they parade in the girl's dress up clothes, they make cookies with us, they dance in our kitchen, they leave their toys at our house.  They gather in our driveway for a warm walk at the end of October in Virginia.

We have four doors on this house, and they all seem to open easily.

Someone Who Needs Somewhere

". . . . a song for
        someone who needs somewhere
        to long for . . . ."

If there were ever a light cast across a piece of earth more beautiful than the one on this particular June evening in a little corner of New York state, I have never seen it.

This light came with restoration to our weary souls.
Did we leave our friends without proper goodbyes?
Did we drop tears onto the skinny face of a sick baby?
Did we feel homeless before we ever left home?
Did we drive 2000 miles?

We could answer "yes" honestly, but the whole truth of it would be lost somewhere in the bleakness of the question.

We have friends, we have a baby, we have a home, we are together!
Yes, these patch up the spaces that felt empty in the question.

As lake Ontario laps soothingly at our feet and the sun throws warm, low light across our faces we begin to be happy.

We trust,

In all of it, I see two things.

I see where my Dad is not.  He is not sitting on the bench next to my Mom, with a book in his hand, or a laptop on his lap, or his hand resting softly at the nape of her neck.

I see children who build.  I think Jonah told me they were elves making a shelter because he became ill.     Nowhere to live?  Nowhere to rest when your body is spent?  They pull from the unmade space as we do in time of need.  Here a stone, there a stick, a piece of driftwood drug from the water.  All buttressed against a small rise of earth.  The whole thing a bulwark of youthful ingenuity that protects against element and distress.

It is the blueprint to the weeks ahead.