The girl to the left might seem to be flying, and indeed, there are times when I think she is able to. She is my daughter Devon, and she is in fact underwater in this picture - reaching - and as can be easily figured from her happy young face, she harbors no doubt that she will arrive at her destination. I spend a lot of time thinking about my kids and what lies ahead for them. And as any parent these days, much of my thinking tends to mutate into worry. By the time you get done reading the paper, or worse, watching the news on TV, you get the feeling that your only responsible option is to lock them up behind closed doors and read them a lifetime's worth of fairy tales, where happy endings remain safely in place.
When I was her age, I was already starting to be aware of the fact that the world outside my parent's door was much less hospitable a place than the world they made for us at home, but I rarely felt the need to fear it. There were certain streets I knew I had to avoid after school, and of course the local movie theatre was a likely place for some kind of "choose off" to come down, so I went to the movies prepared to be quick and to defend myself if necessary. And always, as the oldest boy in the family, I would be ready to make right any wrong to the family honor that my little brother might suffer on the playground, etc. These were real and sometimes painful dangers, but though I dealt with them reluctantly, they were fairly easy to manage.
From the vantage point of adulthood, I realize these early tests of courage were but rehearsals for the need to muster a whole lot more of it as life goes on, with a whole lot more on the line. And I have become very clearly aware that my parents took great pains to prepare me well for the challenges that have come. My mother's mantra to me, from an early age, was always, "You can do anything you want to do, if you're willing to work for it." Over and over again, whenever an opportunity appeared, she'd say it. "You can do anything you want to do..."
Along the way, I have leaned all over that particularly useful piece of brainwashing. Though I have come to realize that many of my failures have had more to do with a loss of courage than a lack of work, the fact that my parents' early faith in me was so strong has seen me through the bumpiest of times. To the heart that believes it is worthy, courage will finally come. And I realize that the magnitude of that gift is almost impossible to measure. It has made ALL the difference.
This month in "Premiere" magazine there is a feature on Courtney Love which celebrates her tremendous work as an actress in Milos Forman's film, "The People vs. Larry Flynt." Courtney had a childhood that was way less than stable, to put it mildly, and she has worked her way through a well-chronicled storm of an adulthood. But, as she puts it, the grown-ups who raised her, for all their difficulties as parents, were always quick to acknowledge her creativity. She was sent signals that her efforts to make sense of the world and to express herself were important and worthy of praise. She is doing extraordinary things these days, working with clarity and purpose. Those early positive signals, even in the midst of chaos, had a whole lot to do with empowering her.
I see it all around me, now that I get to eavesdrop in the lives of my children: Some of their friends are building up a store of faith in themselves, others are struggling to believe they matter. It's a poignant and compelling dance - this distribution of early emotional resources. I see it working on different and changing levels in my own family, and I'm so aware now of how much impact parents have in this process, especially in the early years of their children's lives. A small gesture of faith, offered in a clear and simple moment, can ring like a comforting bell through time. A disparaging word, especially one born out of a parent's own accumulating frustrations, can weigh so heavily on a kid for such a long, long while.
And it's hard to keep this in focus. It's hard to keep anything in focus, for that matter. But I try. The truth is, I couldn't have dreamed the life I am living. I couldn't have imagined the length, the difficulties and the joys of the journey. But I have a strong suspicion that my parents did, and stayed focused on paving the way.
Till the next time,
A
