Every Once in A While

If you’ve read any of my blogs on parenting, you’ll know I find it challenging.  I really just have no idea what I’m doing.  Most days,  I am pretty convinced my kids will need years of therapy to recover from my well meaning but inept mothering.   On my worst days, I think I am making all the right moves for my kids to turn to drugs and promiscuous sex and eating disorders and eventually land in juvi.   But every once in a while something happens and I think I can’t be doing everything wrong.

The other night, Tanya was over for dinner after having been out of town for a whole week.  Now, Tanya is first and foremost my friend, but I am forced to share her with every member of my family because she holds a very particularly special place in each of their hearts. What this results in is that when she comes to our house, the minute she walks in the door, words and stories tumble out of our mouths, bumping and jostling each other in the race to reach her first. 

This night, after 15 minutes of this conversational chaos at dinner, we decide that it will work much better if each person has some time to tell Tanya something about their week.   I go first, and then Bill.  Bill begins to tell her about going to the release of Myesha Jenkins' 2^nd book of poetry at Darkies Café.   In amidst the who was there, what we ate, whom we talked to, what the format was, Bill told Tanya about how when Myesha that night had read the title poem from her book, Dreams of Flight, he had turned to me and asked, “Does this capture what you are feeling exactly?”  

At that moment in Bill’s story, Alexander had wandered over and was coincidentally (or not) standing right next to my copy of Dreams of Flight.  “Let’s hear it,” I say, “Alexander, bring that book over. Read the last poem.”  Now if you know my boy, that is a bold thing to ask of him.   But he is as eager as all of us to be in the glow of Tanya’s attention and so opens the book and reads the short poem. He reads it well, with assurance, in his fine public speaking voice, as if he had been practicing .

And blam, that is the start of it, a poetry slam breaks out at our dining room table. 

After Alexander read that one, Bill takes the book and reads one that especially speaks to him, one that could have been written about him.   It tells of fathers who know how to plait their daughter’s hair and make spaghetti  bolognaise and know what time school starts.   Alexander, being very much Alexander, then pronounces that the poems are all free verse and that free verse is too easy, at which point he digs out some non-free verse poems he had written in Grade 6 and proceeds to read them all to us, deserved pride tingeing his voice. 

Quince, meanwhile, has been flipping through Myesha’s book and  is desperate to have her turn to be in the spotlight.  She stands up and reads us the ones she has selected, including a lovely one about feeling safe while wearing an older brother’s shirt.   And then, Quince, being who she is, quickly composes her own poem, and we gladly (me, glowing a little) listen to her read that one too. 

Feeling the magic, Quince suggests that we make every Sunday poetry night in our house.  Moreover, she declares that every Saturday she will spend time writing poetry to read at Sunday night poetry night.  Now I know how magic works – you cannot schedule it.  You must just recognize it when it comes and be grateful that it has chosen to visit.   But I also know that magic visits when certain things come together. In this case, I know part is Tanya’s presence, as she always brings out some magic in our family, and also part is the gift of Myesha’s beautiful, accessible poems.  And though I don’t know what it is, I can’t help but think somewhere along the way I did something right that set the stage for my family to spontaneously create a night of poetry.  It is rare, but I am feeling a momentary pride in my parenting.   Feels nice.