Braiding

My mind feels like it's stuffed with brussel sprouts, layers upon layers of words and images and shreds of things I'm supposed to remember and ambitions that are airless, unblown balloons.

Bea has burst two balloons in the last week, one because she was upset and banged it down on some pruned Russian Sage and the other, because she was having a lovely time and bounced it off the ficus tree. Only it didn't bounce--it burst and lay on the floorboards, nothing but a scrap of green rubber.

Parents, why do you give your children balloons? Why do you give them ice-cream cones? Who doesn't know the absolute heartbreak of walking out of the ice-cream shop, your heart full of a thousand licks and the thrill of ownership, and plop, on the concrete, melting fast, and your cone is just a cone with a thin ring of milky sweetness. Even those last drops are not sweet anymore; your riches are gone.

As an adult it is hard not to grieve these small losses when the sudden enormity is reflected in your child's eyes. Immediately I say, "Oh, honey, I'll get you another." If only all problems could be fixed so easily.

We spent a wonderful few days with Catherine, Nancy's beautiful daughter. On Saturday morning I braided her hair. It has grown long and lustrous through the late summer. The sunlight slanting through the window caught it, and I thought of the story of Rumplestiskin. The girls ran about the sun room and chatted and laughed, and I sat on the chair and the weight and privilege of brushing another's daughter's hair was full in me. Nancy, if it's possible, let your hands slip into mine as I touch your daughter's hair; let your fingertips feel the tug on her scalp as you draw three growing locks into one braid. Do not leave until the braid is finished, falling and shining down your daughter's back.