Francesca (5) and I are standing at the ridge of our driveway. Also a quiet time (especially on Tuesdays when Abby, our mother's helper, is inside with the other two.) Just us, waiting for the sound of the bus. We live, you see, on a long and quiet road and have become quite good at distinguishing the sound of the bus from all other sounds. And I have already kissed her goodbye and told her to have a good day (we started doing this on day one of the bus because I wasn't sure when the bus would roll up and didn't want this "goodbye" to be rushed or, worse, missed altogether.) And, on this particular morning, I was standing with one leg in front, kind of resting back into my other leg. A stance, you could say. And I watched Francesca so keenly in this moment perhaps because there was nothing around us but cold quiet and a shared waiting and I saw her take her time to model my said stance. Left leg in front and the weight shifted slightly to the back leg. Man, did it hit me again: the simple, core realization that our children model what we do. They model what we say. They model who we are.
At times this same realization has brought me to my knees in tears. Times when I have acted or spoke in such a way that I would not want to be modeled. Times when I have not paused between a behavior and my own reaction to this behavior. And each one of these times, this knowledge that our actions are not only watched but undoubtedly repeated in some manifestation, has been the second arrow that has been difficult to shake.
But this time, I saw the simple beauty in this mirroring. I saw my daughter open and me, well, as myself. Standing in the silence.
