Us

These days, my daughter and I travel divergent paths. I am keenly aware of the granularity of our nuances, like oil and water. Our moments, both episodic and fleeting, etch our polarity into the ether.

She tries on audacity like a rare jewel, sparkling yet hard edged, challenging me, my answers, my experience.

"No, you haven't been unloading the car for minutes. It's only been seconds."
"No, Mom, you said..."

Even though we are both attracted to the strengths of our individual bonds, and even though we are tethered by our shared gene pool, we now separate. Me, heavy with experiential knowledge, often times missing the purity of her wisdom. She, a metaphorical and physical a light-weight, skimming the top and wondering what the bottom holds, secure in her formative assumptions of the world.

The whys of this (now) obvious insight elude me. However, the knowledge now settles around me, warm like an old friend, helping me pick through the prickly path of our days.

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When I shake a bottle of salad dressing, I try to pour it on my leafy greens immediately, before the oil and vinegar separate, bursting away from each other once again. But you know that exact moment when the two elements hang together, suspended in time, beautifully?

That happened last night. Before we scurried and dispersed into our individual spaces, we connected.

Bedtime arrived. I breathed. Abby breathed. We talked. I didn't exacerbate her. She didn't annoy me. We met, in that fleeting, magical moment where time suspends worn habits and molecular structures. Her freckled nose crinkled while she giggled. Time did not push me out the door. Affinities abounded.

Our hearts filled. Oft-giving and oft-refilled vessels, buoyant, once again, with the bliss of this shared time. An endorsement of all the variances which make us both us.