I have a problem being present. I am forever wondering what it will be like later: what would the stairs look like if they were carpeted? When will Ella need braces? What about next week? Will I be happy then? Then there are times when I wrestle myself away from the crystal ball in my head and pay attention. This mostly happens when one of my girls comes to me with a story to tell. I consciously turn to them, thinking, "This is it. This is when something special can happen. Don't blow it." Then we must lock eyes because eyes are the window to the soul and once souls decide to dance, there's only now.
We lock eyes and I see the blue of Ella's spark up and glitter like a million stars as she begins her tale about horses and how a bunch of horses is a herd and that her favorite kind of horse is a Mustang, although Arabians and Appaloosas are cool too. I watch her little pink lips move around the unruly bulk of her growing in big teeth. Her hands punctuate the space around us with words like "gallop" and "high plains." I stare at her in wonder, amazed, amazed, amazed as though in an equine trance: my little girl is a beautiful thinking person, a part of me who is, every minute, becoming her very own unique human. Realizing this in the moment is awesome and I know I can only experience it if I stay present.
And so I do and soon I can't bear the thought of this horse treatise ever ending because then I'll have to go back to next week or next year and being in those places makes me a bit anxious while being now, here with Ella and all her magic, makes my breath even and my heart calm. I listen to the end, my head filled with trotting horses and happy neighs and then she's off, tumbling out the door and into the yard, on to her next great discovery while I sit for another minute, reveling in mine.
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