neighborly waves

Let me tell you about my daughter. For anyone that knew me as a child, my E is not at all like I was. I was shy, afraid to color outside the lines, and perfectly comfortable to let life happen to me. As an illustration, there was one time I was driving up to church for a youth group meeting, down one of Santa Fe's little country roads. I noticed a car up on the right that was beginning to back down their driveway. Fast. And they weren't slowing down. Being the observant teen that I was, I slammed on the brakes, but as the car ahead swung out of the driveway, they obviously still did not see me. I put my car in reverse and backed away while tapping the horn. The driveway car still managed to back into my car (my parent's car). So what happened next? The other drived chewed me out, took down my driver's license information and humiliated me for getting in a wreck while driving my "daddy's car." What did I do? Apologized profusely and felt guilty. That was me, ever trying to stay gray, stay out of sight, and never ever cause any ripple in the calm sea that I thought life should be.

E? She runs that motorboat slicing through through the water and screams with delight as she is bounced clear out of the boat.

Last week, though she was dressed in little girl pink and butterflies, hair shining and face washed, she was having a bit of a rough morning. At the bus stop one past ours, neighbor Greg put his kindergartener Zoe on the bus and waved cheerily at the little girls and made funny faces. E shot him the finger. Neighbor Greg called me.

I had the talk with her after school and made her call Greg to apologize. But part of me is relieved that she feels OK about flipping off someone who irritates her. I'd like her to learn a *little* social restraint, but it's better for her to be working from that end than to have to learn from the bottom up how to remember that you are valid.

In case anyone wonders, I did find my spunk, somewhere between Atlanta and New Jersey. I will yell at policemen who do not let me drive my son to gymnastics because of college football parking, and I will hula hoop in a cul de sac for jello shooters. I may even shoot the finger at someone who bothers me, though it would probably be out of sight to the rest of the world since well, we all know about the whackos out there. And while I am busy teaching my daughter about the world and how to tie her shoes, she's busy teaching me that it's perfectly OK to think you are right and the rest of the world may occasionally deserve to be flipped off.