The One With The Pumpkin

I guess all parents

Think their kids are special

Maybe there are some who don’t 

I guess 

That’s how we get serial killers

At any rate

I have known

Since the day both my girls

Came shining into the world

That they were magical beings

MAGICAL

Like no one else

Exceptional in their own ways

Bright and happy like diamonds

Today

Let’s talk about diamond number one

Athena

My first born

Even in the womb

I could feel her

Not just her physical body

Squirming it’s way up into my ribcage

I could feel HER

Her emotions

Her strength of will

My womb was home to an empath

And I knew it

It was 

And at times still is

Exhausting to house such power

She was Athena

Goddess of wisdom

And warfare

A lightning conduit for Joy

Like I have never met before in life

Till my second was born

She has proved to be

At the ripe old age of three

A sensitive sage of a soul

You could easily mistake her extreme empathy

For delicacy

You would be sorely mistaken

A tiny teacup

Filled with molten lava

For there is nearly unstoppable strength

In her tenderness

Athena is warfare and worship

With the wisdom to know 

The latter is what counts

And she does seem to worship the world around her

In the best sense

At almost every other minute of the day

She arrests me with some simple

Seemingly elementary truth

A moment when I have to say 

“Yes. You’ve got it right. That is exactly the level of excitement everyone should have about everything.”

I took her to her very first dance class tonight

To say I was on emotional high alert would be 

A gross understatment

Some of my most formative memories are of riding to and from dance classes with my Mother

Some of my most valuable lessons were learned there

So as I scrunched down her leg warmers

And knotted the elastics on her ballet shoes

As I raked her curly mop into a bun

I found myself 

Feeling the most like an Adult 

That I have ever felt before in my life

I even wore heels

When we arrived

It was Halloween party night

So everyone had a costume on over their dance clothes

Athena was the youngest

The smallest by far

And after heroically overcoming 

A few nervous glances back to Mommy

She was the biggest thing in the whole damn room

I was nearly staggered to watch her

She erupted into that space 

Like a pipe bomb of happy

She ran and jumped and skipped and twirled

Confident in being Athena

She greeted all the other kids

Who hardly knew what to do

Or how to react to the Unicorn in the room

One kid literally turned around and walked silently away from her

When she said “I love your beautiful beautiful hair!”

I braced for the pain on her face

But she spun on her heels and was off 

To find another victim for her kindness

To steal candy and give it back again

To be rejected and awed and to not really notice much 

Outside of her own indomitable self

And the pure love she had for a room full of strangers

I could regale you with the finer social nuances

Noticed by any and every parent on their kid’s first day of anything

I’ll settle for this one

At the after class party

When the game of pass the pumpkin was being played

Hot potato

Without the potato

My little child

Overlooked the frustrated bark of a child 3 times her age

To “Pass the Pumpkin already!”

And with a wide smile on her face replied

“But it’s her turn!”

And handed the pumpkin to girl who had been excluded from the circle 

Saying

‘Here! You get to hold the pumpkin!”

Never mind that the object of the game was to not have the pumpkin when the music went off

My little child

Thought it was a game of sharing

And included the girl who had been left out

Even when someone older had told her to get on with it

I DAMN NEAR DIED

Yes I did tear up 

When I came back in

To tell her it was time to go

She was sitting on the floor eating a cookie alone

And she wasn’t sad about it all

She likes to be by herself too

Especially if it’s with a cookie

As I watched her there

Contently munching away on some neon colored travesty

that I would never have allowed her to eat otherwise

A heavy revelation sank into my heart

I spend a lot of my time as a parent

Thinking I have to raise my daughters

And I do

But the far more difficult and important task

Is to preserve them

My daughter is already a spark of fire

In a dreary grey world

My job is to keep her that way

To make sure

When the day comes 

That the resisted offer of friendship is felt

When the girl outside the circle is her

When there is no kind soul

To hand her the pumpkin 

She can have a reservoir inside herself 

I reservoir I helped dig

Deep and endless and full of knowing

That helps her vibrant flame

Roar to life again

A place 

Where she is always 

That overwhelming 

Rocket of Joy

Telling the world of it’s beauty

Comforting those who sigh

Laughing at the slights of life

Dancing and dancing and dancing

And calling us all 

To worship