Topic: Diary
Oaks are the best trees for autumn. I ascertained this one day after some 20 years living in the valley. Color me a late-bloomer but remember—half that time I was a young girl. Young people tend to take things for granted. I have no justification for these last few years, of course, save familiarity. But now I think oaks are the best for autumn because they outshine all the other trees with their yellow fading-to-ochre-fading-to-deep red death-cycle. Oak leaves give until they whither and die. They are like giant, living, multi-colored fireworks displays delivered in excruciating slow motion.
On the day I realized this I was in a forest that was littered with the gorgeous leaves. They lay beneath the shedding trees like scraps from paper dolls. They carpeted the path that I walked on with my daughter, creating for us a sense of natural royalty, as if the day were manufactured just for us. Maybe it was her 4-year-old curiosity that got me appreciating oak trees. The way her baby hands—the last vestiges of her infancy—grabbed at the leaves and flung them up like so much confetti was only slightly less joy-inducing than hearing her squeals of laughter doing so.
These are the things I try to remember on a day such as this, when it is summer and the oak is the bane of my existence, and my beautiful daughter is 11, and not quite so joy-inducing in her behavior anymore. Picking out the oak sprouts from the gardens has been a tedious affair this season, and no less tedious is the picking of good moments in my relationship with her. Rather than good days being manufactured for us, I try to manufacture as many good moments as I can amid the cries that she “despises” me and that I am “the worst mother in the world.”
The child is constantly trying to “improve her art,” which is mainly drawing, and so she has an endless supply of paper and pencil. That she even has an art to improve is worthy of support and the platitudes I must offer at the 70 pages of anime figures she produces in one day. Some days she and I will cook dinner together. It’s one of the few things I can show her without her getting bent out of shape over her own ignorance. It helps that we occasionally throw food, like shredded cheese, which is easy to clean up. She’s been recently delighted that I allow her to use The Big Knife™. And in the evenings I let her run around with a lighter lighting our tiki torches. Controlled access, that’s my motto when it comes to parenting. We’ll sit out there sometimes after I make her unload the dishwasher or take out the trash and she’ll be fuming mad because she had a chore to do. I’ll make her sit with me on the wrought iron bench and I’ll make funny faces until she gives it up and starts laughing. Or I’ll put my finger right next to her arm and say, over and over, “I’m not touching you.”
Fortunately, at 11, she still allows herself to enjoy being tickled, so I try that tactic as a first resort to diffuse her. Often we will spar in the living room until her anger is spent and we dissolve into laughter. I let her beat up on me, both physically (in spar, never in reaction) and mentally, because she is damn mad at the world and I am the only person she knows who de facto has to accept her as she is. I am her mother, in law and in love. I recall doing the same to my mother, verbally at least.
Mothers of teens are like oak trees in autumn, burning in excruciating slow motion, feeling each fiery spark like a little death. Her words hit my heart like bombs. I can hear the crackle and pop of fireworks…so many little leaves fluttering to the ground. My daughter is shedding the vestiges of her childhood as she tries on adulthood. Her baby hands are gone and so are the days that seemed manufactured for us. No matter—I will give until I whither and die.
Posted by Anna Belle
at 3:03 PM EDT
Updated: Friday, 8 July 2005 3:04 PM EDT
