07.31.12

Dear Jordan,


I hope you had a great visit with your grandmother. I’ve missed spending time with you.


I realized we haven’t really talked about my family, which is funny since they take up as much of my time as your family takes of yours.


I have a younger brother, who came to visit this weekend. He’s like a twinkle light. An aggravating, funny, 6’, buzz-cut twinkle light. He got the cute button nose and Mom’s widow’s peak.


He lives in a small apartment on the opposite side of town. And works as a janitor on a nail place in one of the gayborhood streets. He’s so proud of that, it just sort of pours of him when he talks about it.


He’s challenged. And beautiful. He’s kind of becoming too cool to be my brother.


I realized as I tell you about him, I wouldn’t introduce y’all right now.


See, right now, you’d see his challenges. He’d be this big, freckled mass of different. You might be nice. Maybe. And it’d hurt for you to not love him like I do.


If it helps, all I saw of him for so long was how not normal he was. I wanted him to be smart and cool and popular. There was so much to deal with – the anger, different meds, meetings and more meetings. Paperwork. It was hard and constant.


And it distracted from the fact that although my brother hurt, he was amazing.


A friend of mine said recently, none of us get a pass on being decent human beings. Not now, not ever. We have to learn to be gentle with ourselves, or we can’t be gentle with others. And the harder it is to be gentle, the more it matters we do.

I like that, even though it's hard to remember and harder to do.


So, Miss Jordan, I'll start with you.

I love you. And I am so, so glad you are in my life.


Because I see your life as a rough start to an impossibly grand future, full of genteel souls and unexpected twinkle lights.

Although the journey won't be easy or pretty always, I'm really glad I get to walk some of it with you.


I’ll call your mom about seeing you next week.


Amber

seeing Jordan

Dear Jordan,

I'm really glad I'm your mentor.

Last night was rough at work, sort of the sour cherry on a bitter sundae kind of rough. I tried to pack it away in my head as I went over to your house, focusing on how you'd respond when you got your book. But it just circled around. 

I tried to think of things to say as I waited for you to answer the door, but what resonated through my head was how different life is now that you're a part of it. Everything feels different, because I wonder how you'd react to it. Alt rock and goth seems naughtier when I listen to it, because I wouldn't if you were with me. Random art pieces I see speak more, because I imagine how to explain them to your scientific, young mind.

Friday's coming up again, and I'd like to schedule some time with you. Maybe we could try something different this time, like golf. I thought of trying a batting cage, but the idea of you and a bat, with permission to hit things... Um, yeah. Maybe we could go see the latest exhibit at the DMA instead. (They have definite no-touchy rules. And no bats.)

My mom once said she wished that we could all spend a day in someone else's head, so we could see through their eyes. Then we could see how they see us, and how the world looks to them. There's so much beauty in life, Jordan, so much that's good and doesn't hurt. I wish I could just give you space in my head so you could see it for a little while.

You'd see you the way I do: an enchanting firefly of a young woman with a bent wing and life stretched out before you like desert sky. You'd see the city where we live, full of hard lives covered by carefully maintained Southern gentility. You'd see your mom, a woman who made an impressively big, bad mistake but learned from it. You'd see how hard life after such a thing is. You'd see how it shows how she loves you.

You'd see life reweaving itself around unravelings, twinkles of God.

You'd see why I really look forward to every other Friday.

Be seeing you,

Amber

Jordan-Alice

Dear Jordan,


I worry about you.


You’re not mine, and I know that, but still. I want to sit you down and just tell you all the stuff in my head: how you should be nicer to your mom, and how it’s ok to hurt but not ok to hurt other people. But I know I ignored people my age that did that when I was your age, so I won't.


Meeting with you this last time was hard.


I know it’s been a while since we saw each other, but I really was trying to make it sooner. You had camp, and then I had a weekend of doctors’ appointments with my mom. Between your mom’s two jobs and me working nights, it was just hard to set something up. I regret that. Really.


But I’ll come back. Always.


There may not always be pizza and books and movies at the mall, but there’ll be me.


Even when you want to leave me behind and pretend you’re alone. Even when you are so jealous and scared and angry you can’t eat, or talk. Even when you think it doesn’t show, that I couldn’t possibly know or see.


There’ll be me. There for you.


Because you’re almost always in my thoughts whenever I talk to my friends or my mom. You’re there when I talk to God, when I play with my puppies. When I have free time, and my mind wanders, I find you.


And I worry the idea of you around in my head. I think about the person you could be if you follow the path most obvious before you right now. I think about how you could be different, and how I wish your life were.


I think about you, having kids and being happy.


You razzed me about getting all teary over “Brave.” Picked on me for liking a cartoon movie between calling slugbugs as I took you home. But every time I looked at you, all I saw was a kid who needed help. Someone who wanted to cry but didn’t know if she’d ever stop, wrestling with the hard light of becoming something unknown; each step weird and slippery with fear.


Someone said recently that we don’t have to create courage, or make it ourselves. And I like that, because it makes me think of Alice in Wonderland, being big after she had a cake. She didn’t know what being big meant, or what would happen if she were. She just ate cake.


Here’s your cake, beautiful Jordan-Alice. Take courage. Be big.


I’ll be there, when you feel little again, with more cake.


Decidedly for you,


Amber