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Written by Kelly on June 25th, 2009In the garden of simple/where all of us are nameless/you were never anything but beautiful to me-Ani Difranco
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Oh she is so beautiful, the sales-lady says.
She leans toward us with floral polyester she masquerades as silk in break room conversation between the stubbed ends of borrowed cigarettes. I recoil from her perfume. It permeates the space between where I stand, disheveled at the counter, a box of generic tampons in hand, and where she rests her lacquered finger nails against the click-click-clacking of her cash registering machine.
Just beautiful. She says it again, and I watch her mouth bloom the color of hibiscus.
Butterfly sits in the cart. Her eyes a very blue astonishment. Her lips, the pucker of her unadorned mouth, the dart of her small tongue, rolls the word back and forth.
My daughter just turned two. Suddenly she is new, long and lean. I wonder where the chubby infancy has gone. On her birthday, I think about her birth. How they placed her all angry squirm on my chest, and I recoiled. There were months when I did not know just how the two of us would ever belong to one another. There is a part of my heart that sags as I write these words. Post-partum made me a puppet, and depression pulled my strings. It wasn’t me. Someday she will read this blog, I hope, and I want her to forgive me.
I want her to see my now in some far off future. I want her to feel what I feel as I write these words, both weeping and laughing at the enormity of how I love her. My Butterfly. My girl. Every sentence here is measured against the impact of who she will become as she grows into the shape of her own womanhood.
I want to promise her things, like that I will never show up at PTA with botox or a boob job. I want her to know that I have been planning the cd of songs I will give to her the day that she leaves for college, since before she turned a year old. I want her to roll her eyes with exasperation that masks her tender pride over the fact that I sometimes cry when I listen to Ani Difranco or Regina Spektor, thinking we might pass lyrics between us like soft secrets whispered to bended ears.
I want to give my daughter a world without misogyny. I want to pass down a pair of thick black shit-kickers she can use to stomp her presence known to those in society that will expect her always soft and pink. I want her strong enough to tell me she wants pom-poms and lipstick, even though she knows it will wreck my stubborn heart. I do not want her to fear her shadow or the sound of her own voice. And so I tell her, as often as I can, that she is more.
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I said baby show me what you look like without skin-Ani Difranco
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I Beeeeeyoutooooful!
She tells me this as I pull her from the bathtub. Her tiny, naked body splays droplets of bathwater on the rug. I try and wrap her in a towel. She growls and escapes. She runs across the bedroom giggling, away from my diapered hands.
I Beeeeyoutoooful!
When she is laughing, I laugh with her.
You are, my darling girl. You are so Beeeeeyoutooful! And, you are smart too.
You are so very smart, my sweetheart. And that is good, better than good, smart is the very best of all.
Smart is something more.
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You know they never really owned you/you just carried them around/and one day you put them down and found your hands were free/Your hands were free-Ani Difranco
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Happy Birthday to my darling daughter, who taught me what it means to have my own hands be free, by allowing me to wrap her safely inside my arms.
25
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Wow! What a fabulous post. I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks of my daughter when she listens to Ani…
25
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i always thought of that last line by Ani as being about burdens, but i realize now too it could be far less simply about children, the bittersweetness of their growing, this complex love.
and my start with O was harsh, too. i look back trying to remember how Other he seemed to me, and it baffles me. and now he pushes to be separate and a part of me crumbles that i did not hold him tight every minute he would tolerate it, even though the rest of me understands how impossible that is.
25
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My children are grown, my daughter a woman already, but still she calls me.
We watch old home movies sometimes and I marvel at how little she has changed. She was fierce as a two year old and remains so now. I miss my babies but love the people they have grown into.
25
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I am always telling my girl that she is smart, and special, and trying my hardest not to just emphasize the beauty of her, which is spoken so much… But I need her to know that she is MORE. So much more, and THAT is what truly makes her.
This post was incredible. Off to put together a list of songs for my daughter’s graduation… 
25
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Bon,
I’ve always “read” those last Ani lines as being about the realization that you do not have to carry the burden of others expectations. And, I want my daughter to be free. I want her to know that her hands are free. Ever since she was born, those lines have reminded me of her, reminded me of the moment in my own life when I realized that-when I became a mother.
25
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Happy birthday to your smart daughter.
25
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Beauty is what everyone sees so that is the focus. It is so hard for them to move beyond to see what is really there. And I think that is our challenge as parents, to strengthen our children’s inner talents.
25
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What great positive affirmations about your daughter. I’m really glad that you give those to her.
25
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Happy Birthday Beautiful.
25
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lovely. Lovely!
25
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Yes, happy birthday to her!
25
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Just one thing – you owe her no apology for some perceived misbegotten reaction upon her birth. She has no memory of what happened then. She will have little or no memory extending any further back than just about now. NOW is when she starts building memories that will last her lifetime. And NOW – all she knows is that you love her like crazy. Don’t beat yourself up for something she will never, EVER be aware of. All she knows is love – and that’s the way it’s supposed to be.
Happy Birthday to her. A very Happy Birthday.
25
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how very beeeeaaaautoooooful!
just like her mama.
happy happy birthday to you all.
xok
25
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Happy Birthday to your smart–and beautiful–girl..and to you (we always forget that it was YOUR birth day too!).
I didn’t know you loved Ani…I have some music to send you. More songs to pass along, more songs to change the world.
Enjoy the day. Her day. Your day.
They’re gonna change the world, our kids. I know it.
25
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Beautiful post. I love that you use music as a framework for your writing – I do the same. I also share that wish that everything will be perfect for my little boy, that he’ll cruise through life much more easily than I did.
25
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Happy Birthday to Butterfly! and Happy Birth Day Anniversary to you, too!
I will lamely and honestly admit, I do not know Ani DiFranco, but coincidentally am on a mission to explore new music – so, I will give her a try. If you love her, I’m sure I will!
Wonderful post as always – the colorful visions you create with your words never ceases to astonish me!
Peace.
25
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Wow – you had me thinking all afternoon. Happy birthday, Butterfly, and happy anniversary to you in commemoration. I tell my daughters that they’re smart and I tell them that they’re strong. But I do tell them that they’re beautiful, too. Because they are. We’re raising 21st century women – you and I. They can be all of it – the whole package.
25
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Two? Couldn’t be. Must be a hundred and two. Feels like I’ve known (of) her forever.
Happy Birthday lengthening one.
And this is just plain stupid gorgeous, “I watch her mouth bloom the color of hibiscus.”
25
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Oh, this made my heart contract and expand with love. Just beautiful.
This especially
” thinking we might pass lyrics between us like soft secrets whispered to bended ears”
and this ….
“I want to pass down a pair of thick black shit-kickers she can use to stomp her presence known to those in society that will expect her always soft and pink.”
so grateful to have been connected with such a powerful writer.
25
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Gorgeous reflections. Happy birthday, little one . . .
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and to know, that there is nothing wrong with beauty, or brains. especially used in conjunction.
26
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When I think of our daughter I thik of the song ‘Bad to the Bone.’ With her beauty, smarts, and toughness, WATCH OUT WORLD!!! If she gets your tenacity and my brilliance she’ll conquer the world and then some. Beautiful post kiddo!!!
26
PM
happy birthday.
beautiful words. “Post-partum made me a puppet, and depression pulled my strings. ” this always gets me. this remembering. i have it too. it pains me to see photographs from those months, that year, those years.
we are all the stronger for it. and our children too.
27
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Happy birthday to you and your beautiful butterfly!
Such a sweet post
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27
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You know . . . you don’t even have to measure out your words to show her, to let her be, more.
Just being you will tell her all she needs to know.
How did 2 happen upon us so fast?
28
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That tender fierce pride is so hard to convey. Just marvelous writing here … and she will forgive you you know … women are like that on the whole. xxJ
28
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You’re raising a butterfly and she’ll be able to fly. Happy birthday.
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Oh sweetie- love is complicated and sometimes involuntary and contorted and not always sweet. Birth is full of residual trauma and elemental currents- you always loved your daughter, it’s loving yourself and allowing her to love you that might have been hard? But not anymore. You have done well, she is secure and loved! Forgive yourself!
4
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I get so happy when I ask my 2 yo daughter how she knows things and she responds:
“Because I’m so smart”
On the other hand, I cringe a little when she says:
“I’m a princess, I’m so pretty”.
I shouldn’t mind, but I do.
14
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This is just wonderful, Kelly. Perfect.
Here’s my favorite: Every sentence here is measured against the impact of who she will become as she grows into the shape of her own womanhood.
Isn’t that true, how everything we do is about their becoming?