week 11 // you are my wild

One of the other "wilds" shared an article with all of us this week...

(Read it HERE before continuing).

It articulated feelings that are so present in my life right now, that I felt as though I was a water balloon ready to burst as I read.  

The one who is looking at me as I type this is still fully immersed in all that is childhood.  Daily I hear her plead with her sister for her time... an hour of her day to play dolls or school or set up their doll house together.  And the other, back turned to me, is somewhere in between.  She wants to play, I can tell she still has the spirit in her, but her mind has begun wandering to other places too.  Her heart still wants to be wild and free, chasing fairies or writing stories about woodland animals in dialog with one another.  But she tires of it sooner than she used to, defaulting to organizing the shelf next to her top bunk or making proclamations about who she is and what she likes on scrap pieces of paper.  While one child runs to the slide and swingset at the playground of our neighborhood park, the other quietly meanders away from the gear and down to the creek.  There she collects trash from the creek banks so as to "save the fish and ducks.  It's my job, Mom."  She's finding her identity, and I have a front row seat.

I feel like I'm in that little boat up there.  I get scared and sea sick from time to time.  I never know what lies ahead.  But the journey is beautiful and always changing.  Things are never boring.  I continue to fall in love with sea again and again, for different reasons as the journey continues.

                    "All of parenting is a constant farewell and an endless allelulia wrapped together..."

See the 13 other journeys here: you are my wild.