I Think To Myself

We’re driving down the road, headed to a Kindergarten Welcome party as she requests me to play the song “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” by Israel Kamakawiwo’ole.

My heart swells and the tears fall behind my sunglasses as she hums the sweet tune in the background. She’s five years old and starts school next week.

It’s a song that played for me right as I was told my Great Grandma Gertie had passed on, the origin of my red hair. And hers as well.

A song that has played at many thresholds and spiritual experiences of my life.

It was also a song that I played for this same little 6 month old baby every time I loaded her into the car. She would scream and cry, a bird resisting the cage of her car seat even back then. A little tiny fire that could be quelled by the waters of this song. Instantly satiated and calmed by its melody.

It feels a life time ago that I played her this song to calm her down for a car ride to whatever distraction I was headed to at the time. I remember feeling caged myself. Bound to the tiny demands of an infant, day in and day out. The woes of fresh motherhood. I remember the shame of wishing time would pass us. I remember dreaming of the days of her autonomy, just so physically exhausted by being constantly needed. And I remember the medicine of this song, for us both, in those days. Me, a quiet respite of not holding, feeding, tending a baby for however long the drive required. And for her, the soothing in between the distance of the car ride and her mother’s arms.

Life works like that. Paradoxes, everywhere. Wishing for the thing you know you’ll resent someday. Wanting to be the best mother, and wishing it away all the same. It’s not entirely true. The truth rests somewhere in between the extremes and remains an attitude of reality versus anything tangible.

I’ve learned through my children exactly how contradictory human nature is. Especially as I find myself on the polar opposite of this paradox, resenting the moments I wished our time away and grasping for the shreds of moments we have before Kindergarten starts.

We can feel everything in between and ultimately it’s a simple song that makes everything right in the world. And that somewhere over the rainbow, blue birds fly. Dreams really do come true. And our trouble melts like lemon drops.