2003-02-03 - 10:10 p.m.
SOMETHING MORE
Parents experience multiple moments in which they say, �When did she suddenly grow up?� Parents of girls may have a particular one, sometime when their daughter reaches young adolescence, in which they look up and suddenly see the woman more than they see the girl�if only for a second. Once you�ve had that particular glimpse, you never see your daughter quite the same way again.
The one with Kat came when she was twelve. She was dressed up in a business suit, curls, and make-up for a part in Guys and Dolls. I was so busy with the curls and make-up and finding her an old suit of mine that I almost didn�t see the final effect. Kat�s body was fairly mature at that point and I had noticed but I hadn�t really seen. I even looked at the full ensemble and didn�t see. But Mr. Philately did and I saw it reflected in his eyes so I looked again. Nothing about her said little girl. Everything about her said woman.
Tonight I had such a moment with Day-Hay. Day-Hay is still a slip of a thing, not yet five foot tall or one hundred pounds. Her body is not yet as mature as Kat�s was at the same age, although I�m sure it will get there. Strangely, Day-Hay was not wearing adult clothing or make-up. She had no curls. In fact, her hair was in too braids. Nothing about the way she looked as she walked into dance class prepared me to see it, but there it was.
It wasn�t the physical Day-Hay that did it. It was the physicality of Day-Hay that did it. When she stood at the barre in her spaghetti strap lavender leotard, her tights, her ballet slippers, and her flowery ballet skirt, she was a young teenage girl in a ballet class. Then she began to move.
I�ve seen her dance before. She is lithe and graceful and, increasingly, very controlled. There was nothing suggestive about the dance her class was working on. The movements were fairly classical ballet, albeit done to �Classical Gas.� But there was something very sensual, very grown-up, and suddenly, she didn�t look much like a little girl anymore. The limbs were not all scattered, but organized and purposeful. She knew something she didn�t know last year and I knew it. I could see it in her dance.
Oh, I�ll see my baby again, and the self-centered toddler, and the sensitive seven-year-old, and the eager youth again. Experience with her older sister has taught me that. But I met someone today I�d never met before and I will see more of her.
Day-Hay�s everything she�s always been�and something more.
LAST YEAR: The Laundry Ferret
LAST FIVE ENTRIES:
Columbia
Leveled
For Their Time
36 Years
Losing My Mind
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Copyright 2006 by Ellen |
