It’s been a rough week. It included catching a cold and hearing my dad say the words, “How do you think I feel? My daughter is 38 and doesn’t have her life together?” Huh? What? Prior to this statement, I wasn’t aware that my life was somehow not together? Improvisational at times, sure. Perhaps a bit off-the-cuff, but never not together. (Granted I had called him self-absorbed before he made this statement, but still…)

So I want to take a moment and thank Liam for being there; for making homemade pasta and meatballs this week. We’ve covered some rough terrain during our time together. But as bumpy as it has been we have come through things jointly, with just a few bruises.

Liam and I met while I was visiting friends in New York. I lived in Oakland, CA at the time, and was considering relocating back to New York. It was fall. He was cute. But not much like the men I usually went for (short-ish, sardonic, dark-haired). He, by contrast, was 6’5”, sandy-blonde, somewhat Viking like, and he talked too much.

After I returned to California a chronic, Instant Messaging love affair began. Trying to think of something to say, I said, “Let’s see . . . Can you tell me how to pick ripe fruit? That could be useful.”
He replied, “Ripe fruit is easy to pick, because it’s ripe. Just grasp it lightly and give a slight tug.”
“If it wants to be picked it will come with you freely.”
“If it’s not ready it won’t let go of the tree.”
And that’s pretty much the way it happened. We both came along freely needing only a slight tug. Part of having your life together is being able to recognize the moment.

My daughter is a bright, energetic and sunny-dispositioned five year old.  She is swinging in the backyard at my dad’s house.  She and her grandpa start talking to one of the neighbors about St. Patrick’s Day, just a couple of days away.  Louise, the neighbor looks at Emerson’s lovely red hair and asks her if she is Irish. “No” Emerson quickly corrects Louise, “I’m Brooklyn”.

She likes to cup her hand around my ear and whisper and I think, this is what it means to have a daughter; I have someone to share wishes and secrets with.

Here is one of my secrets:  she is an only child and my biggest worry is that she will be lonely. What I wish for her is to find, throughout her life, deeply supportive friendships that will sustain her.

My daughter loves to create things: little drawn characters, pictures, cutouts.  Give her some tape, some paper, a bit of ribbon, a handful of stickers and a sharpie and she is happy.  She tells Liam and I that she wants to be an illustrator, and when my aunt recently asked her how she likes her ballet class she said “it’s ok, but what I really wants is art classes.”

So Liam has started taking her to the comic book store so she can see different styles of drawing and he bought her some tracing paper in case she feels like going over the lines in her books.

I’m secretly delighted.  What I most want for my daughter is that she be the main character in her own life — the active agent.  So I like the idea of her being the one with the charcoal in her hand.

She certainly didn’t get any drawing skills from me, that comes from her dad.  Although I will admit when I was an undergrad at Bard College I had a small book scholarship, which gave me a line of credit at the college bookstore.  I used the money almost exclusively to buy alternative comic books.

Emerson lived in Brooklyn, NY for the first four years of her life, prior to our move to Phoenix. When she was a toddler part of our daily ritual was to go for walks in the neighborhood and wind our way to the playground but also coffee shops, bookstores and galleries.  There were murals and walls tagged with intricate graffiti.  From her perch in the stroller, she would make requests to walk past certain favorite pieces.

Emerson is only five, and I know she will change her mind about what she wants to be as readily as she changes her mind about her Halloween costume.  One week it is the Statue of Liberty and the next Princess Leia.  But it is fun for me to imagine her as each of these future women.  Whether a paleontologist or illustrator, dancer, astro-physicist, or chef I want to be there.  The truth is she will be many things. Think of the things she has seen me be:  mommy, documentarian, archivist, librarian, writer, not to mention the Christmas season when I worked at the bright pink toy and clothing boutique.

From the earliest days of her life she has wanted to be with me. She is always a willing companion for the coffee shop, or grocery store, or almost any errand.  But she is growing so fast and her legs are getting long and gangly.  She still crawls into my lap in the rocking chair and rubs my face with hers.  And I want to believe that we will be like the super close Lorelei and Rory Gilmore, from the television show the Gilmore Girls, for all of our years, but I prepare myself for her wanting to push away and prematurely anticipate the times she will want to pull back in. One of her current favorite phrases is, “I’m soo serious”.

My daughter says, “Do you think sugar-free yogurt would taste good”? “I don’t know what do you think”?  “Usually sugar makes the day for some foods”, she says.  I cup my hands around her ear and whisper, “I agree”.

Ok, I admit it. It is with some trepidation that I start this blog. I have all the typical worries – Why would an already overextended woman in her 30’s want to take on another task?  Isn’t blogging so incredibly dorky? Who the hell will read this thing anyway?

But I guess ultimately I am looking for a place that feels like mine; a place to pull together all the various loose threads of my life. And so here it is.