by Sarah Kay<\/p>\n
If I should have a daughter\u2026instead of \u201cMom,\u201d she\u2019s gonna call me \u201cPoint B.\u201d Because that way, she knows that no matter what happens, at least she can always find her way to me. And I\u2019m going to paint the solar system on the back of her hands so that she has to learn the entire universe before she can say \u201cOh, I know that like the back of my hand.\u201d<\/p>\n
She\u2019s gonna learn that this life will hit you, hard, in the face, wait for you to get back up so it can kick you in the stomach. But getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air. There is hurt, here, that cannot be fixed by band-aids or poetry, so the first time she realizes that Wonder-woman isn\u2019t coming, I\u2019ll make sure she knows she doesn\u2019t have to wear the cape all by herself. Because no matter how wide you stretch your fingers, your hands will always be too small to catch all the pain you want to heal. Believe me, I\u2019ve tried.<\/p>\n
And \u201cBaby,\u201d I\u2019ll tell her \u201cdon\u2019t keep your nose up in the air like that, I know that trick, you\u2019re just smelling for smoke so you can follow the trail back to a burning house so you can find the boy who lost everything in the fire to see if you can save him. Or else, find the boy who lit the fire in the first place to see if you can change him.\u201d<\/p>\n
But I know that she will anyway, so instead I\u2019ll always keep an extra supply of chocolate and rain boats nearby, \u2018cause there is no heartbreak that chocolate can\u2019t fix. Okay, there\u2019s a few heartbreaks chocolate can\u2019t fix. But that\u2019s what the rain boots are for, because rain will wash away everything if you let it.<\/p>\n
I want her to see the world through the underside of a glass bottom boat, to look through a magnifying glass at the galaxies that exist on the pin point of a human mind. Because that\u2019s how my mom taught me. That there\u2019ll be days like this, \u201cThere\u2019ll be days like this my momma said\u201d when you open your hands to catch and wind up with only blisters and bruises. When you step out of the phone booth and try to fly and the very people you wanna save are the ones standing on your cape. When your boots will fill with rain and you\u2019ll be up to your knees in disappointment and those are the very days you have all the more reason to say \u201cthank you,\u201d \u2018cause there is nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline no matter how many times it\u2019s sent away.<\/p>\n
You will put the \u201cwind\u201d in win some lose some, you will put the \u201cstar\u201d in starting over and over, and no matter how many land mines erupt in a minute be sure your mind lands on the beauty of this funny place called life.<\/p>\n
And yes, on a scale from one to over-trusting I am pretty damn naive but I want her to know that this world is made out of sugar. It can crumble so easily but don\u2019t be afraid to stick your tongue out and taste it.<\/p>\n
\u201cBaby,\u201d I\u2019ll tell her \u201cremember your mama is a worrier but your papa is a warrior and you are the girl with small hands and big eyes who never stops asking for more.<\/p>\n
Remember that good things come in threes and so do bad things and always apologize when you\u2019ve done something wrong but don\u2019t you ever apologize for the way your eyes refuse to stop shining.<\/p>\n
Your voice is small but don\u2019t ever stop singing and when they finally hand you heartbreak, slip hatred and war under your doorstep and hand you hand-outs on street corners of cynicism and defeat, you tell them that they really ought to meet your mother.\u201d<\/p>\n
–Read at St. Lydia’s on November 10, 2013<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Sarah Kay If I should have a daughter\u2026instead of \u201cMom,\u201d she\u2019s gonna call me \u201cPoint B.\u201d Because that way, she knows that no matter what happens, at least she can always find her way to me. And I\u2019m going to paint the solar system on the back of her hands so that she has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2567"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2567"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2570,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2567\/revisions\/2570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stlydiasliturgy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}