When the Book is too Delicious

  
To My Daughter,

Today we went to story time, like we do every week. You didn’t want to sit. You wanted to stand. Right up in front. Inhaling the words off the pages, snuggling your heart into the arms of the librarian, and swallowing life the way you do; whole and all at once.

I know that I kept asking you to sit down. It isn’t that I don’t understand your need to move your body, it’s that I want you to understand the lay of the land, the rules of the world. Because this will help you channel that energy into the good stuff.

I speak about you often as though we are nemesi, you and I. As if you live to challenge me, break every rule I put in place, toss every parental confidence I have wildly astray. 

But you are me, little one. You are my spirit outside of my body. I know you need to move. And jump and hop and laugh furiously and yell like wildfire. All of this while you are taking in absolutely everything around you. I know you are. Listening. Learning. Shaping your mind.

I know this because I see myself in you. And in this picture. 

I know how hard it is to wrestle within a body that wants so badly to follow the rules but also- to break every last one of them. To feel the dizzying longing for creativity while wrangling oneself into the structure of a sound and well-researched paper.

Despite this understanding, I told you to sit down 97 times today and then finally pulled us both out of story time. But like I told you in the parking lot; it wasn’t because I was upset with you.

It was because life has rules to follow and because the people we meet out there have rights; being able to see the pages of the book too.

So sit right up front and feast on all the universe with your eyes and your heart; just sit down on your tush so all the world can feast too.

[Sit down. 

Sit.

Stop moving. Just wait hold on. Just. Hold on. Wait just… Hold on. 

Hold…

Just.

You’re standing on me. On me. You’re on me.]