of optimism and adventure
day 10 : 100 days
It rains here in Minnesota quite stupendously. I can use this word stupendous with authority, having spent most of my childhood in Washington state. A gray, green, and eternally damp place which knows a thing or two about precipitation. My oldest daughter, Esme, who is ten (about to be eleven in four weeks), woke up at 6 am this morning. I know this is the time she got out of bed because I could hear her walking around upstairs on the creaky wood floors, and I checked my watch. Slightly flustered because that meant I was now out of time. I got up and closed my door, a signal that I’m not done in here, thank you very much, and I sat drinking my tea in big gulps. I took a moment to try and convince myself that I was not now out of time, but I very much was. And that was okay. I wanted to go check in on Esme. It promised to be a big day, and I knew, I best not dillydally.
Esme and I knew the forecast called for rain. We knew it would not be a drizzle or a drop but a sheeting, showering kind of rain. The kind that you see in the old movies (Stooges or Chaplin) where the hero gets caught in a downpour and just surrenders, sits down and tips over their boot, water pouring out, all while still being drenched - then maybe they put their hat back on their head only to have themselves soaked all over again. The whole scene might end with them putting a limp piece of straw or a bowed-over, soggy cigarette in their mouth and shrugging their shoulders.
And here was Esme, who by all accounts should have been sleeping in with the covers over her head because on this day, with this kind of weather predicted, she was going to be on a bicycle — for six hours. This was bike camp week, and when the teacher had asked them, all the kids had said they wanted to give it a go - they would ride in the rain until …well, until the misery proved more than the feeling of accomplishment, I’m sure. So Esme was not sleeping in or shirking as one would expect. She was preparing her bike bag, undaunted, zipping her rain coat, and filling her water bottles. She was excited. She was ready two hours early. We were watching the sky together, and I was trying and succeeding mostly at not asking too many annoying questions. Questions, like “Are you sure you want to wear jean shorts today?” My hope was not to invoke feelings of irritation or worse, reality. So I made some tea, and we went to our little blue couch, trying to stay with this current feeling of optimism and adventure.
As soon as I sat on the couch, I remembered a note that I had made to myself earlier in the morning in my notebook. A note inspired by this very 100-day project. I had started to think of possible other things to do for a hundred days. And at the top of one of my pages, I had written “read all of Kelly Barnhill’s books.” I leapt up and trotted down the hall to grab the copy from Esme’s room. Drawn no doubt to the gorgeous cover of a giant moon and a girl with dark hair much like her own, she had begged me for it at her school book fair. I ran back and we awkwardly reconfigured ourselves, laughing a little. Esme is now full adult human size, five feet plus, and when she curls her legs up and makes herself into a snuggleball, it seems like she is mostly not on the couch at all anymore. Every time I notice her this way, her size, it still feels startling, like it just happened when I blinked. It usually provokes a bout of me watching baby videos alone, late into the night, while crying.
I opened to the first page and began to read aloud. Esme had been gently holding her head on my hip, as if she was trying not to make her head heavy. Have you ever done this? Tried not to let your full weight rest on a person? But then, as I started to read, she let go, and I could feel her gravity, and her content slipping over the whole room - it felt like being anchored, like we had been turned into two happy little boats and were now drifting gently, with words of moonlight and magic lapping at our hearts. Whatever the rest of the day held, Kelly’s words and this moment held us now.
Even if you do not usually read books aloud, I dare you to read this book and not think to yourself, “You know what, maybe I should try voiceover work.” Without even trying, my voice had rumbled and changed into the “craggy, leafy, barky” sound of Xan the witch. And like all good writing, the words were like a song in the room - the kind that happily gets stuck in your head; the perfect soundtrack to make a young girl shrug her shoulders, and warmly tuck her spirit in before a looming, stormy, wet day of optimism and adventure.
How lovely. And of course I want to know how that day turned out for Esme. Did she keep her spirits up? I imagine how much she'll enjoy reading this someday- maybe far in the future, or maybe today!