““If I should have a daughter…“Instead of
“Mom”, she’s gonna call me “Point B.”
Because that way, she knows that no matter what happens, at least
she can always find her way to me. And I’m going to paint the
solar system on the back of her hands so that she has to learn the
entire universe before she can say “Oh, I know that like the
back of my hand.” She’s gonna learn that this life will
hit you, hard, in the face, wait for you to get back up so it can
kick you in the stomach. But getting the wind knocked out of you is
the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of
air. There is hurt, here, that cannot be fixed by band-aids or
poetry, so the first time she realizes that Wonder-woman
isn’t coming, I’ll make sure she knows she
doesn’t have to wear the cape all by herself. Because no
matter how wide you stretch your fingers, your hands will always be
too small to catch all the pain you want to heal. Believe me,
I’ve tried. And “Baby,” I’ll tell her
“don’t keep your nose up in the air like that, I know
that trick, you’re just smelling for smoke so you can follow
the trail back to a burning house so you can find the boy who lost
everything in the fire to see if you can save him. Or else, find
the boy who lit the fire in the first place to see if you can
change him.” But I know that she will anyway, so instead
I’ll always keep an extra supply of chocolate and rain boats
nearby, ‘cause there is no heartbreak that chocolate
can’t fix. Okay, there’s a few heartbreaks chocolate
can’t fix. But that’s what the rain boots are for,
because rain will wash away everything if you let it. I want her to
see the world through the underside of a glass bottom boat, to look
through a magnifying glass at the galaxies that exist on the pin
point of a human mind. Because that’s how my mom taught me.
That there’ll be days like this, “There’ll be
days like this my momma said” when you open your hands to
catch and wind up with only blisters and bruises. When you step out
of the phone booth and try to fly and the very people you wanna
save are the ones standing on your cape. When your boots will fill
with rain and you’ll be up to your knees in disappointment
and those are the very days you have all the more reason to say
“thank you,” ‘cause there is nothing more
beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the
shoreline no matter how many times it’s sent away. You will
put the “wind” in win some lose some, you will put the
“star” in starting over and over, and no matter how
many land mines erupt in a minute be sure your mind lands on the
beauty of this funny place called life. And yes, on a scale from
one to over-trusting I am pretty damn naive but I want her to know
that this world is made out of sugar. It can crumble so easily but
don’t be afraid to stick your tongue out and taste it.
“Baby,” I’ll tell her “remember your mama
is a worrier but your papa is a warrior and you are the girl with
small hands and big eyes who never stops asking for more.”
Remember that good things come in threes and so do bad things and
always apologize when you’ve done something wrong but
don’t you ever apologize for the way your eyes refuse to stop
shining. Your voice is small but don’t ever stop singing and
when they finally hand you heartbreak, slip hatred and war under
your doorstep and hand you hand-outs on street corners of cynicism
and defeat, you tell them that they really ought to meet your
mother.””