A little moment today.
A single moment.
I spent the afternoon and evening at the girls’ school.
A celebration of the end of the school year and of . . . an end.
The girls’ school is being shut down.
Budget cuts.
Maj is headed off to Junior High next year.
Kallan is headed off to a new Elementary school.
Changes ahead.
It was a lovely event . . . music and dancing and pizza and snow cones and games and balloons and speeches.
Children everywhere.
Joyful melancholy chaos.
I spent some time wandering the school’s halls, looking at all of the displays of artwork and writing and class-work. Talking to some of the other parents about their plans for the summer. Talking to some of the teachers about their plans for the future.
Changes ahead.
One large table was covered with binders, one for each class. The binders contained photos of all of the children and letters they have each written . . . for a time capsule to be buried on the school grounds. The letters detailed the children’s fondest memories of their school and their visions of the future. Each letter had the home address of the author printed on the back, and when the time capsule is opened, these letters will be sent to the children’s families.
A lovely idea, but I couldn’t help wondering where we will be in ten years.
Whether these letters will ever find us.
Ten years is such a long time away
Changes ahead.
So much life to be lived in these next ten years.
It was difficult to imagine the future . . . Maj and Kallan’s letters and photos were so clearly Maj and Kallan right this moment.
My daughters . . . right this moment.
I love this moment right here.
This version of my daughters.
Hard to imagine another version.
So I felt disconnected from the whole notion of the time capsule.
I turned away.
I turned away and into the past.
I was staring at a photo of Maj.
Part of a larger collection of photographs of all the 6th graders . . . a guessing game . . . match the baby photos to the big kids they have become.
Maj stared back at me . . . six months old.
Wispy blond hair, round pudgy cheeks, sparkly blue eyes. Her ears all elfin, her smile mischievous. Her chubby hands reaching for the ivy of our then backyard.
The photo was taken not long before our first Christmas as a family.
I stare at baby Maj.
How can that have been more than 11 years ago?
It’s not possible.
I remember picking out that sweater. I remember how she liked the ridges of the knit, how she used to trace the lines with her tiny pointer fingers. I remember how she liked the hood . . . hood on, hood off, hood on, hood off.
I remember its soft pink color.
I remember the weight of Maj in that sweater as I carried her. I remember the heft of her against my hip. Hood on, hood off, hood on, hood off.
I stare at baby Maj.
I remember feeling then that the future was impossibly far away . . . that I would be this baby’s mother forever . . . just like this.
I can smell her. I can feel her soft warm skin against mine. I can hear her crazy giggle.
It is as though time has collapsed.
My arms and my hip and my heart ache to hold baby Maj.
Tears well in my eyes but I cannot look away . . . Maj melts and drifts and distorts as my vision clouds.
“Mother!”
I swipe at my eyes.
Maj stands before me . . . 12 years old and impossibly gorgeous and self-assured.
I cannot breathe.
“I’m going to ride my bike home with my friend, alright? We’re going to her house first, so I will be home in a while.”
I nod.
“See you later, Mother!”
I watch Maj walk away, and then she suddenly turns and runs back to me.
Pulls her sweater from my arms, “It’s getting colder. I should probably take my sweater.”
Blue sweater. Zipper.
I watch her pull it on as she walks away.
Hood on?
No.
She pulls it free of her long blond hair.
Hood off.
I stand there for a moment.
In between moments.
A moment between.
Waiting for the next moment to arrive.
The next moment and what it brings.
Changes.
Ahead.
_________________________
People?
Don’t forget to click on Danielle’s Psychophant link!
She did it!
She got 50 new people to like Pretty All True’s Facebook fan page!
Yay!
Her hilarious video link is up at the top of the page with her awesome photo.
Go!
elfin ears? love it!
And the post? wooo I have chills. Time is an interesting thing. I remember once sitting on a friend’s couch thinking and taking in that one moment and where I was and thinking that the future is so far away. That was more than 10 years ago now. wow
Maj does have elfin ears . . . I remember once taking great annoyed offense when a pediatrician pointed this fact out and told me that she was going to want to have them fixed when she got older.
I love her ears.
I have for the past 12 years.
Time is a crazy slippery insistent thing.
Sigh.
Kris
Wow, Kris. This is a beautiful post. It brought tears to my eyes. My oldest graduates from 4K tomorrow. I can’t believe five years have come and gone since I held her the first time.
Lauran -
Thank you.
I am not usually a woman who gets sad about the moments that have passed. I like to live in this moment right here and look to the future. But once in a while I am caught off guard and swept away.
A lovely thing.
But stunning in its power.
Kris
“Joyful melancholy chaos.” Perfect phrases like this are amongst the reasons that I adore your writing.
“My arms and my hip and my heart ache to hold baby Maj.” I ache to hold baby Katie too…I know this feeling.
There are times when I cling so fiercely to the “now” that thoughts of “then” paralyze me.
And in those moments, those between moments? I think of you. And you give me strength.
Because you are doing this with grace and dignity.
I thank you for that…for showing me how to move forward.
I love you, Kris.
May the changes ahead be lovely.
Nichole -
I apologize for coming onto Twitter and insisting that you come read this post of mine. I just felt such a connection to you in this moment . . . in this small moment. Sigh.
I always think of you when I write of small magic moments. You and your small moments of magic. I know that you write of them to hold onto them. I know you are scared to let them go.
But this moment today, for me?
Was magic.
And it took 11 and a half years of letting go of moments to make this magic moment.
I wish magic for you, Nichole.
Always.
Thank you, babe.
Kris
And that video? funny funny!
I know, right?
Hilarious!
I love how you so effortlessly go from funny, to thoughtful, to playful, to deep (Red Noise still verberates in my head)- to this.
This lovely, gorgeous, lump in throat writing.
Your love for Maj shines through here. You just made me cry. And you were right not to post the photo – your words are enough. xoxo
Alison -
I sometimes get testy with people who ask for more photos.
I tell them, “My words are enough. And if my words are not enough, then I need to stop gathering them together and writing them down.”
Thank you for that phrase . . .
“Your words are enough.”
That’s all I dream of accomplishing with my words.
Enough.
Kris
This is a blog friend. All it needs are your words.
Thank you, Issa.
Thank you for that.
Kris
You’re welcome darling.
Photos can add things to blogs. I do believe that to be true. However? I read blogs for the words. Always.
Me too.
Always.
Love.
I posted about moments today too.
Not as much time has passed but I see my son, and gaze at my daughter, and wonder where did the moments go from when he was her age.
I loved both. And in between.
I love how you shared this.
Thank you Kris.
Kelly -
Motherhood is awesome in its connective and isolating power.
Both at once.
Always.
So happy we connected here.
Thank you for that.
Me
Oh Kris….I am rarely here quickly enough to make the first 50 commenters. But this post? Hit me so hard tonight. Schools closing, kids moving on….it’s like a filmstrip on high speed at times.
My youngest is the 12 year old, cemented in middle school.
My oldest, my son? Graduates from high school this Friday.
I totally get this.
Sherri -
That is the perfect analogy.
“Like a filmstrip on high speed.”
Yeah.
Exactly.
Me
LOVE. just love.
“…that I would be that baby’s mother forever…just like this” feeling this a lot lately & my little one is only 4.
Connected with this so much today.
Andrea -
Every stage of being a mother (at least for me) feels as though it will be this way forever.
And then it never is.
Sigh.
Yeah.
Thank you, babe.
Kris
Emmalee shoved this knit cap on to her head today.
“Look daddy, I’m wearing the weird hat again!”
For whatever reason that transported me back to a time when she was a pudgy cheeked baby. Although only 3 years ago, it seems like an eternity.
Time does fly.
Beautiful words Kris.
Russell -
Aren’t those moments of transportation amazing?
A gift from our children . . . a form of time travel.
Oh my god . . .
When I think what I would have missed if I had decided not to have children?
My heart just aches.
Me
Kris…wow! For a mom of little ones, this really hit me right in the gut! The whole “hood on, hood off”…that’s my kids right now. And I don’t want them to get big. But I do. But I really don’t.
I don’t want the changes.
But I do.
But I really don’t.
Natalie -
I do want the changes.
But I don’t.
But I really do.
Me
Tears. So many. Thank you for so much heart in this. XO
Awwww, Galit.
Thank you for seeing my heart in this piece.
Kris
I love your tags…I especially live that you did not publish the picture. Helps me picture my own liminal moments with my kids as I read…makes it resonate with the reader. Love.
Tiffany -
I honestly found the photo on my computer and stared at it for a few moments before hitting “publish.”
Debating.
But in the end . . . I like to leave space for my readers to put their own memories and emotions.
Her photo would have gotten in the way.
Thank you for seeing that, lovely you.
Thank you.
Kris
There’s something about the end of a school year that makes me nostalgic for who my kids were. I can’t help but be amazed at how fast they’ve grown.
August brings changes here too. Drew will bs a freshman. Nathan will be a 7th grader & my baby? Will be in kindergarten. How did this happen? It seems only yesterday I was was in the bathroom learning of her arrival.
Natalie -
Those words exactly.
I am grateful and overwhelmed and thrilled.
But . . .
How did this happen?
Exactly.
Kris
Love. Love.
The moments between the moments… they’re such still moments, but raging with feeling. This was beautiful. My gut aches.
Here’s to amazing moments ahead…
Jenni -
The moments between moments are always the ones that catch me up.
Always.
When I am not paying attention.
When I am resting for the moment to come after having almost completed the moment behind.
BAM.
Yeah.
Me
Of course I will think of this tomorrow as I hug my 15 month old and snuggle with my already impossibly big 3 year olds. Sometimes I wish we could stop time.
Leigh Ann -
I have no wish to stop time.
I love the young women my daughters are becoming and I want to be here to see the future my daughters hold in their hands.
But I am sometimes overwhelmed at what is required to get from here to there.
The change.
The ache.
The passage of moments.
Sigh.
Kris