When in Doubt, Dance.

They say that once you have a child, your heart begins walking around outside of your body. I have found this to be true.  In fact, since my girls became teenagers, I don't always like the places my heart goes. Sometimes I don't even know where my heart goes, especially on weekend nights, and that can really drive me crazy. 


Back in the day, mothers had it worse -- what with infant mortality, arranged marriages, and the absence of amazing pills like antibiotics and birth control.  But still, even with modern conveniences and technology, the weight of parental responsibility, combined with the lack of control, creates a tension that stretches like a frayed rubber band during the teen years.

I recently finished Imperfect Birds by Anne Lamott.  She often writes about the sweetness and angst of parenting, both in memoirs and fiction.  Her memoir, Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year, is so candid, frank and hilarious that I gave it to one of my daughters to read, just in case she might be romanticizing the notion of motherhood.  (I am pretty sure it turned up the dial on her birth control vigilance.) 

The new book is about a teenage daughter who has everything going for her outwardly, but is spiraling down on the inside, and the incremental revelations that slowly awaken her mother to what is really going on. Anyone who has raised a teenage girl, or been one, will recognize the cloak of secrecy the daughter wears so well, and may empathize with the mother's unwillingness to lift the cloak and look at the darker side. It reminded me of what I was capable of during my teen years, when my conscience was still just a scaffolding rather than a structure in my brain.


I can so relate to wanting not to know.  I would so much rather pick up a magazine, say Real Simple, and tuck up my feet, than knock on her bedroom door, waiting and listening for the sullen "What." on the other side, more parlay than question, but still the best opening for a brief dialogue that I might get on any given day. I could wrack my brain and heart for the just the right tone and approach to get past her guard. But mostly I try to live by Anne Lamott's advice, "Don't look at your feet to see if you are doing it right. Just dance."

Of course, it isn't all eggshells and worry. It's side-splitting laughter, little victories, long hugs and gratitude, too.  It's different from day to day; sometimes from hour to hour. It's temporary. It's almost done.


“Don't look at your feet to see if you are doing it right. Just dance.” ― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life