{"id":9539,"date":"2017-05-14T17:26:36","date_gmt":"2017-05-15T00:26:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jeanetteleblanc.com\/?p=9539"},"modified":"2017-05-17T22:21:02","modified_gmt":"2017-05-18T05:21:02","slug":"uncommon-sense-wisdom-daughters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jeanetteleblanc.com\/uncommon-sense-wisdom-daughters\/","title":{"rendered":"Uncommon Sense: Wisdom for my daughters"},"content":{"rendered":"

{This may be the longest post I have ever shared here – and yet it is just beginning, and the words keep coming in a way that tells me that this is a part of a much larger project that will continue to take shape over the next few months. It may be a book, or perhaps something I have not yet imagined. I first shared it over on Patreon<\/a>\u00a0– and have added another 1500 words since, shifting and changing and molding this further and further with each revision. I don’t know yet what is next. But today is Mother’s Day – and it feels right to share it now]<\/em><\/p>\n

My Dearest Daughters. <\/span><\/p>\n

My girls. You are growing so quickly. <\/span><\/p>\n

Yes – that is such a cliche opener. <\/span><\/p>\n

But you see, being your mother is every cheesy cliche rolled into this entirely ordinary reality tucked into these moments of utter brilliance in a way that leaves even me without all the right words. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One minute you were babies, the next on the verge of this extraordinary becoming. Now, as bones lengthen and bodies change – as you both shift and change into beings that are less and less child, this separation is ever more present. <\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Even as I write this I find the fear rising. That I have not had it together enough for you. That I’ve not hid the struggle enough. That I\u2019ve let you come too close to the reality of my humanity, as messy and raw as it it often has been. I should have protected you more from the harsh realities, from my own failings, from the way I\u2019m messily making my way through the life I was given and the one I built from the wreckage. <\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>God knows, I haven\u2019t always done this clean. I\u2019ve lost my integrity and I\u2019ve stepped off the path and I\u2019ve been so damn attached my own burn down that I\u2019ve walked us all too close to the fire. <\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>But still – \u00a0I<\/span> want you to always know me as exquisitely and humbly human. As creatrix as much as mother. As ugly and dirty and real as much as calm and patient and loving. I want you to see my struggle as well as my bliss. My unmet longing as counter to my grace. My deep rooted insecurity and my deeply held knowing of purpose. My hard fall of tears as much the sweetness of my laugh. The way we all can storm and cry and flail and then fall into my big marshmallow bed, a tangle of limbs and heart and tears, and fall asleep intertwined, secure and at peace.<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>The knowing of what it is to mother that I want to offer you is not one lifted from hallmark cards and air brushed perfection. It allows for the all and the everything. The fight and the surrender. The grappling and the grace. <\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>Even now you still both curl yourselves into me at night, just before sleep overtakes your bodies. Me in the middle, my arms wrapped around you both, your head on my chest and our breath synchronized. I wonder at how you have grown so large, so completely yourselves, yet also so clearly a part of me. The most favorite times of my entire life are when we are cuddled together, just us three. My heart and your hearts – they are not separate entities you know? And yet – they are. Separate and distinct and defined.<\/span><\/p>\n

Because you are your own. Always have been. Always will be. <\/span><\/p>\n

God – the miracle and wonder of that.<\/span><\/p>\n

My girls. My wee family of three. My greatest thing. <\/span><\/p>\n

A mother, of course, must always guard against a propensity to give too much advice. \u00a0It\u2019s so easy to act as if I know it all – simply because I was once young like you. To presume that my knowing should directly impact your own. And because I often feel like a fumbling human, so very flawed and unsure – that I wonder if perhaps I have no right to offer advice at all.<\/span><\/p>\n

Or\u00a0perhaps it is this very humility that leaves us the most able to open up to our own deeply held wisdom. <\/span><\/p>\n

I want for you to know what it is for a woman to live in fullness with herself. And want you to know that I have fought for it, that my goodness is not externally granted but rooted in my wholeness. And that wholeness has sometimes come at great cost. My integrity has been hard won and roughly delivered and that it has often looked different than what the world would call true. To understand that even fullness can sometimes feel dark and bleak and empty. And that it is true that even the regrets and unmet hopes – the rough gash of loss and betrayal, have brought untold richness to what was born. <\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>And my god, my girls – have I known love and beauty. The kind of love that can only be held with a sort of reverence and awe – so much did it change everything that ever was or ever should be. So deep that it names all else as worthwhile, just to have brought me there.<\/span><\/p>\n

I want, by the very root of my life, to show you a narrative that diverges from the one this world would have you live.<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>I am beyond blessed to make a life out of a pile of words. And I know it. The artistic angst does not ever take away from that knowing – but it took a while for me to learn that. And so you will also know me as an artist. To be sure, it can be a raw and primal thing, this unceasing drive to make something from within one\u2019s self. Great art is birthed of both great pain and great joy and sometimes directly as we navigate the tenuous space between the two. We birth our art as we birth ourselves. Both, often, in the midst of struggle. And yet – I want you to know deeply that struggle is not a prerequisite for the bliss of creation. Not even close.<\/span><\/p>\n

My daughters, growing up is all experimentation and mistake making and learning, both gentle knowing and with the kind delivered with harshness that will break a heart. Oh god yes, this learning will break your hearts – again and again. But it will also build and strengthen and grow them – the breaking and the becoming and the tender grace of the in between. <\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>This is the way of this living thing that we\u2019re here to do. <\/span><\/p>\n

At the risk of imposing my life lessons on lives that are all your own, I will tell you these things that I want you to take into the world with you. <\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Please note:<\/b><\/p>\n