Today

Whenever I’d come home from an art, music, yoga, or gym class with my daughter, my Mother would ask how she liked the class. Sometimes my husband would come home from work and ask me a similar question. I would go to each class with preconceived ideas of how the class should be; how my daughter should follow instructions and enjoy the class the way other children did. If she did not participate appropriately, I’d often mistake her absence of movement or song as a sign of boredom or underdevelopment.

Today, I watched my daughter participate in some yoga moves or simply watch other mothers with their babies or toddlers. I decided that today would be different. I would watch my daughter, and see her, what she wanted to do or not do, who she wanted to be or not be, what she wanted to sing or not sing. I saw her light, the one that needed me to understand her wondrous mystery.

As we ended the class in Savasana, she did not want to lie on top of me. As I let her show me her way, she rested her head on my lower abdomen and pelvis. I stroked her hair, and watched the rise and fall of her black curls. Today I understood my daughter’s oceanic nature, ebbing away or flowing to me.

I honor her rhythm.