Setting the Home Table: Eyes Wide Open

“I feel it all, I feel it all, the wings are wide…. I know more than I knew before…” -- Feist

In this time of devices at the ready to capture every moment and instantly share with the world if one should choose, I think about the impact of these photos on our memories. The first time I began to share our family journey on this site seven years ago, I wrote about “Capturing It,” and over the years I have written about the balance between being in the moment versus the behind the lens observer. As anyone who knows me can attest, I am often on that observing end, hence very few images of me on this blog. While I don’t question my active participation in our life, I do wonder what I may be missing.

Lila turned seven this summer, and as I do every year around her birthday, I took out the letter that Greg and I wrote to her just before she was born. In this letter, we promised that while we wouldn’t always have all the answers, we promised to give her as many experiences as we could. The past months have provided a bounty of experiences. I smile as I read my last post about committing to writing more often- creating the narrative to frame the countless photos on my camera roll. I missed that mark. Once again it has been months, and perhaps my delinquency may be attributed to the wealth of experiences we were privileged to share with our growing girl.

Our year began with the gift of a trip of a lifetime to Disney World from Grauntie, with Aunt Beth and Stella, followed by spring break in Europe, a 7th birthday party carnival extravaganza, and summer visits to the Ginny BBQ, Grama and Lila spending a magical summer week together, the Beards trip to Philly and a beautiful long weekend visiting the Rizzos and Grama in Vermont. Check the box on experiences for 2017 and we aren’t even through…

So with all of these experiences- how do I inspire Lila to feel it all, and to remember how it felt to walk through the gates of the happiest place on earth, to dance in front of the Eiffel Tower as Paris’s twilight ignited the iconic tower’s twinkling lights, the invigorating chill of a spring Mediterranean sea on her small toes, the taste of her first Virginia BBQ corn dog and the cotton candy she and Stella devoured together in Hershey Park, the sight of Mona (in a very crowded gallery amidst many others more focused on capturing selfies with this famous face then actually appreciating her), and the feel
of accomplishment as she first found her balance on two wheels.

Last month I spent a Friday afternoon in New York, soaking up what felt like stolen moments in the city where I have spent the most years of my life and the place that will always pull me back. As I walked through the Village - the same streets my graduate school self timidly first explored over twenty years ago, now envelop me in the comfort of familiarity. I walk past Washington Square where I received my graduate degree, the restaurant where we scraped together spare change for a falafel splurge, the library where I spent many a late night in the “stacks,” and I find my step slowing. I want to breath it all in, every food truck smell, the early evening sun bouncing off the buildings and the electricity of Friday night in the Village. It is the decades that have taught me to breath more deeply.

Lila’s school kicks off the official start of the year with a celebratory assembly. Approximately two weeks after the first day of school, ushered in by the ceremony of bagpipes and fanfare, every student, accompanied by the faculty, marches in with his or her class. A pushover for pomp and circumstance, and defenseless to the horn of a bagpipe, I always tear up when I watch the ceremony. As the class president reads his remarks in a letter to the “future self” of his younger classmates, encouraging them to enjoy and appreciate every moment of the journey that awaits them, I think about what I want to add to that letter we wrote to our baby girl the day before she made her entrance into the world.

Dear Seven-Year-Old Girl,

Look around and look long, look long at the world around you and the moments that come to define you, save those images and lock them into your memory. Smell those cakes and Sunday dinners, the Friday night popcorn and the campfires. Savor the taste of the buttery croissant and icy root beer float, and keep that palette open for all the tastes yet to discover. Listen intently to the words of your favorite songs, the church bells, and the crickets as you fall asleep. Hold tight to that feeling of when you scored your first soccer goal, flipped off the diving board and all those Christmas mornings. We promise to continue to create journeys, some planned and some spontaneous, and we will follow you on yours. I will continue to take the photos but encourage you to give them their depth. Color outside the lines every chance you get, take that rocky road, and use every color in your paint box and tool in your arsenal as you chart your course. You have only just begun, but what a beautiful start you have had. We are so very proud of you.

Love,
Your Mom and Dad