“ not all
order is good, not all chaos is bad.”
I haven’t updated this blog in so long.. almost exactly a year. It’s a little like
exercise in that once you get out of the habit, getting back into it is an
almost Herculean challenge. Originally I
stopped because we took a trip to Disney World and the experience was so rich
and so filled with good memories that I wanted to get it down on paper exactly
right. But it was, as Dickinson said “so
huge.. so hopeless to conceive” that many, many rewrites later I still haven’t
managed it. And in the meantime it has kept me from blogging other events.
So I’m going to set the Disney Trip aside for the moment and
move on to other things.
As is to be expected, much has changed for us in the past
year. Some months ago, we bought a
house. After the financial devastation of the divorce, I had largely given up hope
of ever again owning my own home. But then came the financial collapse and the
housing collapse and the falling interest rates and we reached one of those
“now or never” moments. The long daily drive from one state to another was
getting increasingly difficult to pay for. The apartment complex was starting to jack
up their rates at the same time they were starting to rent to increasingly
unsavory characters.
But the real driving
force was the sight of Moiya sitting on the steps of our apartment with her
dolls waiting for someone – anyone - to play with. Once or twice people with children would move
next door, but they never stayed long. Mostly there were tough kids very much
older who had no interest in a little girl and her dolls. And so she stood, day
after day. Heaven forgive me, but out of guilt I would sometime yell at her to “For God’s sake
come inside!” And she would. And then peer out the window when she thought I couldn't see, like a starving beggar in front of an eatery.
And anything ANYTHING is better than that.
I attempted to move to another apartment closer to Moiya’s
school, but found that the rents anywhere I would be unafraid to raise my child
were flatly unaffordable – with one exception. And after three months of trying
to get a vacancy there, I gave up.
And so I began to look for a house.
Long story short, I narrowed the search to two. One I loved
and about which was sure Moiya would feel the same. The other I didn't like at
all. I showed the two pictures to Moiya and she pointed to the one I had all
but written off
“That’s the house.”
“No, baby… see? This other one is
much nicer.”
With the stubborn insistence of children, she shook her head and pointed again. “No.
That’s the right house.”
I attributed this off to her being eight and clueless. But two
weeks later the house she had picked had begun haunting my dreams – which is
always what happens when my brain knows I’m being stupid and tries to straighten
me out. So I went and had another look at it.
And damned if she wasn't correct; It WAS the right house.
And shortly after we moved in, several little girls came to
the front door, introduced themselves, and asked if Moiya wanted to play. And so our new life was off and running.
It’s been an adjustment for Moiya, who has never before had
to deal with the dynamics of having regular playmates at home. There is always
drama and politics (especially among girls), and at first Moiya was utterly
bewildered, attributing much more importance to things than they warranted. After some squabble, I found that she had
written all her playmates notes (and enclosed money from her piggy bank as
consolation) telling them that she could no longer be their friends and it was
“time to move on.” I have mostly tried
to let her sort these things out on her own, but that time I stepped in and we
had a quiet talk about the meaning of the phrase “burning your bridges.”
And I think she is occasionally
seized with a wild fear that, having waited so long for friends, she might lose
them again. And so there have been a few bizarre attempts to keep everyone’s interest.
Such as the time one of the neighbors texted me to offer
their family’s sincere sympathies on the impending death of Moiya’s little brother.
As Moiya’s little brother was at that time still in utero and
to the best of my knowledge doing fine, I was a bit… nonplussed. But eventually we sorted it out and things
have gotten smoother.
Sadly, the biggest problems relating to all these changes
have come from me. For most of her life, I have been Moiya’s constant playmate. I worked hard on outings and grew to cherish our games together (some of which I've recorded here). But all
that changed. With the advent of friends, Moiya didn't want to play at home any longer. Long-standing
family events got dropped due to lack of interest. The imaginary characters
that populated her imagination (and my world) disappeared. Even her beloved stuffed animals mostly
sit unregarded in a corner of her room.
And Daddy, I’m sorry to say, did not cope with
all this very well. Intellectually of course, I knew that having my daughter
move away from me was a good thing.. a wonderful thing. But intellect will only
get you so far where your children are involved. . I pouted. I moaned. I grumbled
and huffed. I've had to (and am still having to) adjust to a new role whose
rules I haven’t really figured out yet. I've had to change.
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| "No. We're not getting into anything!" |
But I've gotten better. The memory of my girl sitting
lonely on those front steps haunts me still and pushes me to be better. Even Daddies have to grow
up sometime, I suppose. Two months back I hosted a sleepover full of little girls and
lived to tell the tale.
And the trade-off has been - if a bit lonely on occasion - wonderful. Now
when I sit on the back porch or work in the garden I can hear the sweet sounds
of birdsong in the trees. And beyond the trees in the neighbor’s yards, or
echoing through my own house, I can the sweeter sounds of children playing.
Childsong.
Despite now having to use a cane owing to my bad left knee, I've walked to the park/playground a few blocks from home every night this week, circled by Moiya practicing on her new bike. The weather is lovely, and something about the slant of the light from the setting sun makes the colors seem somehow richer and more beautiful. We play hide and seek or Moiya shows off on the monkey bars or I time her as she races her bike across the nearby schoolyard.
