You will find it

I picked J up from camp yesterday afternoon and was regaled with stories of catching water striders, eating honey from a real beehive, and making bird feeders with seeds and corn syrup and pine cones. I'm so glad she enjoyed herself. She reminds me of myself at her age. When I drop her off at camp in the mornings, she is partially looking forward to the day, but there's another thing in her eyes that I recognize as feeling insecure and shy being outside her comfort zone. At those moments I know that if I said, "Would you like to skip camp and stay home with me today?" she would say yes. And so I don't ask her that. Because what she gains from being with children her own age and learning from the camp instructors is something I want her to have, in spite of those moments of reluctance.

This is another thing that helps me to see my own childhood in perspective. I was such a shy child, and there were so many times my parents forced me, miserable or even in tears, to take swimming lessons or whatever. And at the time I felt they were very cold to ignore my pleas to just be permitted to stay home and do nothing. I thought they just wanted me out of the house and away from them so they wouldn't have to be around me. Perhaps, of course, this was true to some degree (because I imagine most parents long for some time to themselves) but I missed the part where they probably also wanted me to become less shy, less inhibited, more comfortable in the World. J is not as shy as I was, I don't think, so it's not as difficult to convince her to get out there and enjoy herself.

We have made plans to go to the movies tonight where she will choose between Shrek and Harry Potter and various other films... I always love going to the movies with her because she holds nothing back in terms of laughing, gasping, and screaming right out loud. That kind of full immersion in an experience is so wonderful.

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Lots of work to do today again before going back to pick her up. Scripts are waiting and so is the carpet, currently strewn with stuffing-guts from a little teddy that was beheaded and shredded by naughty puppies. I would rather taste honey from a hive or chase water striders. Or curl up in a blanket on the couch.

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