Letters to my daughters (April ‘23): ROOT
Photo: Michael Benz @Unsplash
My darling girls
Last night I was looking through a dusty box of old photos – some familiar faces, some not so. Collectively though, they captured the time. It was easy to sink into nostalgic reverie, as if the snap had come alive and I was there, once again. Photos have a magical power in that way. I lost hours last night, swept back into a past that I often feel out of touch with, in the melee of day-to-day life.
I both love and fear looking back at the past like this. There’s obviously a pleasure in looking at moments that have shaped me, but I often detect a heaviness from looking at photos: the younger girl I see as me is back in the room, uncomfortable in her skin, unsure of her place. Or I witness myself with a group of friends, arms tangled, that I am no longer close to. Or maybe I see my baby in my arms, and yearn for one more breastfeed, one more toddler step, the sound of your baby-babble.
Nostalgia can be painful, however joyous the moment caught on film. Truth is, I have never felt happier or as confident as I do today, with you three at my side. Looking back beyond you reminds me of that. It is both blessing and curse, a happy/sad experience.
Your dad has taken a lot of photos throughout his lifetime, and I respect his documentation. He has the most incredible catalogue of his childhood and youth, of his young adulthood, of your childhoods too – every day recorded. And he shares those memories with people, and they are transported too. Classrooms, skate parks, holidays, French exchange visits, parties, first-times, last-times, lovers, friends, acquaintances, festivals, weddings, funerals. Everything and the nothing in between. It’s all there.
We time travel through photos and are reminded of our roots, our beginnings. We can exactly piece together the paths we have taken and the people and places we met along the way – however mundane or ordinary they may have seemed at the time. Not everything seems worthy of documenting. How incredible to have your journey documented from your very first breath!
Before long it will be up to you to continue the story: we won’t be around for the moments you will want to capture; the narrative will become very much yours. (And I don’t mean we’ll be dead, only that you probably won’t want us hanging around with our cameras at the ready…) What will you record of your life? What will you pin down beyond your memory - hard copy, digital, visual, audio, film?
There is real value in returning to moments in our past – so that we can make sense of the present, and even the future. Acknowledging and understanding our roots, however difficult or uncomfortable that can be, is a very real and necessary part of feeling more connected to who we are today.
***
Up until you two, I think I had chosen to keep moving on in life, never letting roots fully establish and take hold. Without a catalogue of photos like your dad’s to remind me, I remember moving from circle to circle – with a handful of friends as constants – finding it hard to settle and find my place.
When I look back over my shoulder at my beginnings, I feel like a different person to the one I see in the photos: I have made choices and moved away from certain ways of thinking and being, rejecting or severing the influence of certain root causes. We all go through change - right? - and it’s one of the few benefits of getting older that our experience guides our next step. Hopefully, each step becomes surer.
As I’ve got older, I’ve also begun to discern which ideas I want to remain loyal to, and which I can leave in the past. We might get blindsided by remaining loyal to our original family (when in fact doing or being something different might serve us better) and fear the cold of being outside the tribe. But age and experience help us to work out what works best, and what to accept as true.
It’s strange to think that your dad and I are creating the roots that you will eventually be loyal to, or maybe want to sever – just as our parents did for us. We are creating the conditions in which your roots may establish and flourish – interconnected, strong, deep. I dearly hope that’s the case.
I suppose that is the relentless question in parenting – are we offering what you need? Are we nourishing you from the root up – and providing you with the established base from which to thrive, every step of the way? Are we giving you appropriate structure and support, whilst providing space to grow and separate, moving independently in your own time – only to establish your own roots elsewhere, on another patch?
I hope that you can enjoy, celebrate and look back with love on your beginnings. I hope they make you proud and that you continue the traditions they provide. I definitely feel conflicted by some of my own roots – and the world I provide for you now is in some part a reaction to that.
But learning to accept where I am from, with its privilege and its associated blindspots, is part of the growth process; running from my origins – uprooting and in constant motion away from that past – has not helped me. I keep bumping into it on the road ahead; ultimately our pasts are inescapable.
It is here – today, with you – that I know I am happiest and most at peace with myself. And in 10 years’ time I hope I’ll be happier and more at peace still. I know which of my roots to continue to nourish and feed, and which I can let waste away. I know what of my past continues to serve me well, and in contrast, what I need to let go.
Age is a beautiful thing, really. Much undervalued. It gives us perspective on our past lives that loosens difficulty and allows us to enjoy those happier moments that have gone before.
Your lives are just beginning, my sweet girls. You have so much to look forward, so much to navigate and chart. I wonder what of your origins you will take with you as you move forward in your life. I wonder what photos we will look back on together with a smile.
Your loving Mama x