Brave

I have to admit that I breathed a deep sigh of relief when the girls went back to school last week and the house was completely quiet and mine for the day. As the summer comes to a close, I always long for the return to routine and nurture a deep nostalgia for school supplies with back-to-school shopping. Despite the stresses of schooling, I still appreciate the privilege and excitement of learning, something I hope to pursue my entire life in less formal ways.

After a cup of coffee, I set about to tackle the laundry and entered my younger daughter's bedroom, expecting to find a trail of dirty clothes strewn about as is her habit when the whiteboard above her bed caught my eye. She had made a reminder list for the morning of the first day of school, which included typical concerns for a thirteen-year-old girl:

• Jean shorts and pink shirt
• Hair?
• Make lunch
• Pack phone

Then, at the bottom set off in a box for emphasis, she wrote, "BE BRAVE." My younger daughter likes to write down her thoughts as much as I do and has never shied away from openly sharing her writing of stories, notes, school work, cards, songs, and more. I knew all about her anxieties about 8th grade, how once again she had been assigned to a different team from all of her close friends. My husband and I tried to bolster her up for the first day, knowing it would get better once she got there and saw that she would have no trouble managing the setting.

Still, I couldn't help but feel such joy and pride and awe at the two words, written in red ink from her hand: BE BRAVE. As an adult, I wondered how I might benefit from writing these encouraging words to myself more often. More importantly, I wondered how often I place myself in a setting or situation that challenges me enough that bravery may be called upon. Do I play it safe too often? Do I let fear get the best of me, thinking that safety is the absence of fear when the absence of fear is really stunting my growth?

Being brave is moving forward despite the fear. I know that. Now, I know that better, deeper after a reminder written by someone else, for someone else, caught me perchance and stuck. I love it when life lessons come out of nowhere and plant firmly in our souls. See, I am still learning. Let me write it here: I will BE BRAVE as I refurbish this wonderful, unexpected, and rich life. 

Sunflowers

The cool temperatures, steady rain, and blowing leaves meant I grabbed jeans and a sweatshirt over the weekend for the first time in ages as I lazed about the house. In the midst of autumn's unexpected preview, I found myself returning and holding on to an image from early August.

My daughters spent a week as counselors at a camp in the neighboring town, meaning an early a.m. drop off and mid-afternoon pick up for five days straight. To our delight, we passed two fields of sunflowers in full bloom each way. In the morning, their heads awakened with the sun to the east. By 3:30, the west beckoned the heavy blooms as daylight bent over the horizon in its slow but steady decline.

Motorists stopped to take photos or, at a minimum, slowed to prolong the view of each field bursting in yellow, and I understood why completely. The view was breathtaking in its beauty and provoked deep joy with each encounter. I began to look forward to driving back and forth each day, anticipating the fields of sunflowers just up the hill and around the bend.

Last week, I passed the fields again. Only this time, the sunflowers were brown and brittle, the blooms bent under the weight of seeds ready to let go, succumbing to their true calling. Perhaps, the sunflower seeds will be pressed into oil by the local farmer. Or, they may provide sustenance to rodents and birds of all sorts as they feed for migration or hibernation with the coming cold. Or, the seeds might find fertile soil close by or far afield to begin the cycle of life once again next spring.

I did not want to let go of my memory of August, of fields in full bloom.  I didn't want to appreciate gifts of sunflower seeds dried and shared freely, nature's abundance and cycle. And, I realized I feel the same of one phase of life now passing to the next. I still retain the photo on my screen saver of my girls not yet one and four, sitting on the bed with the younger in the arms of the older, their personalities already fully formed and jumping out from their angelic faces.

Yet, last week I took their first day of school photos, alone and together, one in the last year of high school and one in the last year of middle school. I felt a mixture of yearning for the years so quickly passed, pride in the young women standing before me, and excitement for the futures they both are yet to build.

All too soon, my daughters will move on. I will move onto the next phase of my life, too. And, I need to remind myself that the moving on is exceedingly good; only stagnation would be toxic. We will move on together not away from the core of who we are and the tie that binds us together always. I will be in awe of their beauty as their lives bloom, only the type of blossom remains unknown. In the meantime, I will appreciate the sunflower and keep memories of August close at hand.

***

In the Community Garden

Mark Doty

It's almost over now,
late summer's accomplishment,
and I can stand face to face

with this music,
eye to seed-paved eye
with the sunflowers' architecture:

such muscular leaves,
the thick stems' surge.
Though some are still

shiningly confident,
others can barely
hold their heads up;

their great leaves wrap the stalks
like lowered shields. This one
shrugs its shoulders;

this one's in a rush
to be nothing but form.
Even at their zenith,

you could see beneath the gold
the end they'd come to.
So what's the use of elegy?

If their work
is this skyrocket passage
through the world,

is it mine to lament them?
Do you think they'd want
to bloom forever?

It's the trajectory they desire—
believe me, they do
desire, you could say they are


to be this leaping
green, this bronze haze

bending down. How could they stand
apart from themselves
and regret their passing,

when they are a field
of lifting and bowing faces,
faces ringed in flames?