As many of my longtime readers know, I write letters to my children on their birthdays. I send the letters to an email account I’ve created–with the intent of turning over the username/password when they turn 18. Rowan turned 7 on February 8–so this is a little delayed. Unfortunately, I have been extremely sick here & unable to muster enough strength to do much to write/post here. (Negative for Covid–but sick with something…and lacking the white blood cells to fight it off well isn’t helping.) Anyway–hoping to feel better & write more here soon, but this is this year’s birthday letter:
Dearest Rowan,
You are 7 and you have already come so far.
Because your tongue was a traitor, because your lips were disobedient, speech eluded you for years. Even as the words came unstoppered from your throat, you still resorted to pulling people to meaning with gestures & pointing. When that failed, people looked to me to speak for you. And so, for a majority of your life, I have been your loving translator, your ventriloquist, the well-meaning buffer between you and the world.
Even though I look forward to you being able to speak easily for yourself, it is hard not to feel lucky to be the one who gets to communicate with you easiest. You have so much delightful, wonderous thoughts to share and I am so happy I get to be the one to understand them. I treasure my post as the one who shares language with you.
This year, my favorite thing has been to watch movies with you. I can no longer experience seeing the movies of childhood as new-so the next best thing is to watch you & your sister discover them for the first time. Nightmare Before Christmas, Ghostbusters, Beetlejuice…what can I say, you enjoy a spooky flick. And it has been wonderful to see old favorites anew through your always seeking, sky-blues.
The other day you asked to watch Little Shop of Horrors. I was worried Audrey 2 might frighten you…but you were amused by the manipulative, carnivorous alien plant. And, because you didn’t fully understand it perhaps, even more delighted by Bill Murray’s turn as the masochist in the dentist’s office…But then came Somewhere That’s Green. This is a musical number that always makes me weep… because it’s a song about happiness and stability denied. Because it’s a song about feeling that the one thing you want so badly is something that you don’t even feel you deserve to have. Because it’s a song about the sad, unfulfillment of a broken person’s life. Because it’s a song I could’ve written about my own unmet dreams for a family, for a safe place in the world. However, it’s billed as such a syrupy, lyrical piece—sung so wistfully by a waif with a lisp, I didn’t think you would pick up on the sadness of it. However, after spending the whole song attempting to button my own emotions up into myself, I looked over and realized you were crying. When I asked you why you were crying, you said, “Because she is so sad about her happy dream, mom-mom.”
So sad about her happy dream.
I’m not sure what made me cry more in that moment. Maybe it was because you were so sincere in your release of emotions….Maybe it was the beautiful, simple way you phrased that, that showed me just how much of the song & character you had taken down in to the place you feel things the most…Or maybe it was the fact that because of your struggles to string words into strands of comprehensible English language, often, people have not always understood how much you have inside, how much you see with your heart & just how very much you have to share… It breaks my heart to think of you ever feeling discounted when you are so special. You asked me why I was crying. I told you that the song made me sad too, because it is a terrible thing to feel sad about a happy dream.
And so, as Audrey waltzed in her imaginary kitchen–far from reality, far from Skid Row—the two of us sat there crying about the sadness of a happy dream. When the song ended, we looked at each other and realized we were both crying over a song in a ridiculous musical about a human-eating plant. And it was ok. With that, we began laughing and sheepishly wiping the tears off of both our faces. Just the two of us, going full spectrum.
When you are a parent, you will find that there are moments that you want to keep forever—held tightly in the arms of memory. You would think that they are moments of grandeur and vast achievement…but mostly, I’ve discovered, they are tiny, quiet moments like these that hold all the heavy significance…Like a moment where your child & you see each other clearly at the same vulnerable, raw time…and sit in it for a minute, together…accepting the complex, beautiful, emotional messiness that is being a human. I’m not a person who is able to show this softer side of myself often with others, if at all… but with you, because of your open, understanding nature, I can. It is a gift. You are a gift.
And, as I sit and think about this, it occurs to me that while I have been translating and introducing you to the world, it is clear that you have always been the one who is creating a better one with your lovingness, acceptance & divine empathy.
Happy birthday, my most beautiful darling.
Love,
Your mother
I chose this song for this entry as I was playing it the other night & Rowie stopped playing with his Ecto 1 car to come over and tell me that he thought this song was so pretty. Anything that brings joy & beauty to my boy’s world needs promotion.)
Song Choice: The Age of Worry covered by Yebba
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