Everywhere I turned someone was waving this flag in my face.
In my face, as I’m calling out spelling words and folding laundry and chasing Oliver’s scooter to the bus stop. In my face, as I sit in book club while Sue Monk Kidd proclaims a feminist cry against unfulfilled dreams and unheard voices. In my face, as I listen to a friend wondering how she got lost in a decade of marriage and parenthood that was supposed to be hers, too. I began to feel nervous, quite frankly, that I wasn’t doing enough right now. I began to worry that I, too, would wake up one day in a state of discontentment. I began to worry it was this inevitable condition for women and mothers in the world.
That flag flourished again last week when I read The Year We Learned To Fly by Jacqueline Woodson, but this time I found it comforting instead of alarming. Woodson, one of the greatest children’s book writers of our time, wrote about two young children stuck in their apartment in a season of never-ending storms. They kept struggling through waves of discontentment — boredom, anger, loneliness, feeling ignored. Their grandmother told them: “Lift your arms, close your eyes, take a deep breath, and believe in a thing. Somebody somewhere at some point was just as bored as you are now.” The word “bored” was adapted to each of their struggling moments... She learned from her enslaved ancestors that no one can “cuff your beautiful and brilliant mind.” So, she taught her grandchildren to imagine their lives better.
And they did.
Woodson reminded me, and hopefully taught my boys, that I shouldn’t worry about a feeling that may not happen, all I have to do is take care of myself today. I sat still long enough to remember I feel confident, happy and grateful in this life I am active in designing. What I can do in the future, and what I’ll model for children, is to pay attention to the imagination that discontentment breeds. I’ll remember that I know how to use my voice, and that I can feel safe that I have a partner that respects me when I speak up. So if I need to recalibrate one day I’ll lift my arms, close my eyes, take a deep breath… because maybe discontentment is inevitable. Maybe that’s how we know it’s time to grow.
