Dear Mom

Dear Mom,

Thank you for the band-aids. Thank you for the breakfasts and lunches and dinners. Thank you for all of the years of tucking me in, and turning out the light. Thank you for always making sure I got to school on time, and forgiving me for making you late. Thank you for remembering the things I would have otherwise forgotten.

Thank you for the handmade, witty Halloween costumes. Thank you for the Tooth Fairy and Easter Bunny and Santa Claus, and thank you for still refusing to admit they weren’t real. Thank you for the gifts. Thank you for always reading me stories, and telling me stories, and helping me believe in magic.

Thank you for allowing me to tell stories – mine, yours, ours. Thank you for listening. Thank you for understanding that they are about more than just us. Thank you for the pens, and books, and journals. Thank you for supporting and encouraging me to write. Thank you for the volumes of poetry. Thank you for the inspiration.

Thank you for being patient with me when I was learning how to walk, how to ride a bike, and how to drive. Thank you for instilling in me the desire to always be exploring. Thank you for taking me on adventures around the world. Thank you for allowing me to go on some of my own.

Thank you for trusting me, even when you couldn’t fully understand my choices. Thank you for being wise enough to be uncertain. Thank you for telling me when I made you mad. Thank you for your honesty. Thank you for confiding in me and letting me confide in you. Thank you for being the first person I call when things go right or wrong.

Thank you for being selfless enough to teach me to be independent. Thank you for still being there whenever I need you. Thank you for sometimes needing me. Thank you for never giving up on me, even at my worst.

Thank you for potty-training. Thank you for years of cleaning up snot and throw-up and blood. Thank you for no less than 6 million loads of laundry. Thank you for soothing each cry.

Thank you for hugs, and kisses, and cuddles. Thank you for making sure I always felt loved and wanted. Thank you for allowing me to love and to want. Thank you for my good manners. Thank you for teaching me to treat others with respect and kindness. Thank you for kindness – for yours and mine.

Thank you for trying not to embarrass me too much, but sometimes still embarrassing me. Thank you for teaching me to be humble. Thank you for turning moments of humiliation into opportunities for humor and courage. Thank you for showing me the importance of perspective.

Thank you for teaching me how to embrace all of the layers, even the ugly ones. Thank you for cherishing our imperfections. Thank you for helping me recognize beauty. Thank you for filling my life with it.

Thank you for being strong, but also vulnerable. Thank you for being serious, but also silly. Thank you for being tough, but also tender. Thank you for being my mother, but also my best friend.

Thank you for hours of conversation and laughter. Thank you for decades of love.

Thank you for being a superhero, and thank you for making mistakes. Thank you for bringing me into the world and teaching me how to love it.

You’ve given me so much to write about.

Your adoring daughter,
Frankie

Apple Pie

When I was a child my father would make apple pies from scratch. I remember watching him beneath the apple tree in our backyard on soft fall afternoons. I remember his diligence and scrutiny, the way he carefully inspected each apple before plucking it down from the tree. I remember fondly watching this exercise in decision-making. I remember this lesson in paying attention.

It was an art, the way he held each one in his hands, rubbing their soft skin against his fingers, rough from years of labor. He examined each of them with precision, turning them over and over, searching for flaws. The tiniest scratch, and the apple would drop from his hands without a second thought, left to rot among the fallen leaves. The perfect ones were saved.

They were brought inside. At the kitchen skin he meticulously washed them, tenderly caressing them beneath the running water, proud of his discovered treasure. I remember watching the small fruit in the cup of his large, stately hands. I remember seeing what my father saw, those shining apples, those sparkling rare jewels, those examples of perfection. I remember the delicious taste of his apple pie.

But as the years went by, I began to see what my father couldn’t. I would think for days about the apples that were not chosen. I would watch them rot beneath the tree. I would slip out into the yard and watch as ants and worms and small critters ate away at their flesh until they reached the very core. I would think of the way the apples decomposed back into the ground, the way they became soil for the tree, the way they allowed it to once again, bloom. I would think of the way these flawed, imperfect things nourished the world.

I understood them. I knew that if I were an apple, my father wouldn’t pick me. I wouldn’t live up to his expectations. I wouldn’t be praised and adored. I would never be perfect. I would never be lovingly made into pie. He would never experience my sweetness.

But others might. I could still be treasure. I could still nourish the world. Some famished creature could find me and I could save them with my sweetness. I could offer myself fully. I could allow them to consume me down to my core.

More than once in my life my soul has been fed by the perfectly imperfect. I have laughed when things have gone terribly wrong. I have cried at others’ tears. I have delighted in the awkward, the ridiculous, the absurd. I have held scratches and bruises and dents in the cup of my hands. I have reveled in the way they sparkle. I have marveled in the way their imperfections shine. I have seen what my father couldn’t. I have cherished the flaws.

I have sat beneath the apple tree among what was left behind. I have observed the birds and squirrels and ants coming to collect what was cast aside. I have been moved by their love and understanding. I have been honored to be part of this sweet unwanted tribe. It has taught me, more than once, what it means to pay attention.

And it is not about searching for those perfect apples. It is about searching for the value of the flaws. It is about sitting beneath trees on soft afternoons. It is about being enchanted by the world. It is about smelling the sweet scent of fresh apple pie wafting in the wind around you, and knowing that what you have found, what you have created, is far more delicious than that.

Superheroes

When I was young I had superheroes for parents. To the rest of the world they appeared as their secret identities, Alison and Steve, but when they were around me, their true nature shined through. They knew everything. They protected me from harm. They saved me when I needed rescuing. They were invincible. They were Mom and Dad.

It is painful to grow up. My first real heartbreak was not from a boy. It was the day I looked at my parents and saw them as Alison and Steve, as two people, just people, with too many questions and too few answers. It was when I discovered that they were imperfect and vulnerable and ordinary. It was when all three of us came to understand that their days as superheroes were over, that they would have to turn in their masks and capes, that they would have to settle for these lesser human identities. It was heartbreaking for them too, I imagine.

It was inevitable, of course. Eventually we learn that our parents and teachers don’t know everything. At some point we become aware of their mortality, and our own. There comes a time when we all realize that no one can protect us, not really, not completely. Slowly the world unveils its hurtful truths. Slowly our innocence fades from us. Slowly we become these people, these ordinary people, with too many questions and too few answers. The heart is a muscle. Sometimes it aches.

Sometimes truths are hidden in an effort to protect one another. Sometimes lies are told. It’s easier, I suppose, but it’s more than that. They are hopeful lies. They come from loving someone so much that truth feels secondary to that love. I understand that there are things we don’t want to admit to ourselves. I understand even more that there are things we don’t want to admit to each other. We want to save others from knowing our pain. We want to protect them. We want to be superheroes.

But the thing about wanting to be a superhero is that we forget what that actually means. Superheroes are more than strength. They are more than their masks and capes. They are more than just their powers. We don’t love them because they’re perfect. We love them because they are also Clark Kent and Peter Parker and Bruce Wayne. They are also sometimes imperfect and vulnerable and ordinary. They are also sometimes human. We love them because they are both, because these ordinary, imperfect people can transform into greatness. We love them because we can too.

And what I mean by greatness is not perfection or invincibility or immortality. What I mean by greatness is the time when we are at our most human, those moments we are brave enough to follow our intuitions, those moments of courageous self-expression, those moments when our hearts break open to the world. Sometimes greatness is about sharing the dark, imperfect pieces of ourselves. Sometimes the most powerful thing we can do is to speak our truth, no matter how ugly or painful we think it might be.

Hiding it away doesn’t protect anyone. Hiding it away means that no one gets saved.

It isn’t selfish to share our suffering. It’s selfish to never allow anyone to love us enough to share it. Honesty is an act of love. We have to care about ourselves enough to realize our own truths. We have to care about others enough to tell them. We have to embrace the complex whole of our identities if we ever hope to transform into something more.

It is painful to grow up. It is painful to transform. It is painful to earn that mask and cape. But it is wonderful sometimes to be just human, just ordinary and vulnerable and imperfect, just like everyone else. And it is wonderful sometimes to watch the people you love speak their truths, embrace their complexity, emerge from the experience as someone more powerful and heroic and super. And it is wonderful sometimes, isn’t it? To step out of the darkness and realize that you too, can fly.