I know you, little girl.  Yes, you.  Crooked teeth, crooked pigtails, cartwheels, training wheels, believing in the good of all people, believing that grown-ups will always do the right thing, that justice will always prevail, and true love will last forever, of course.  Your big brown eyes see the best in everyone and everything, looking out onto a world made of magic and possibilities.  Precious, pure, little brown-eyed girl who loves to swing, laugh, sing harmony, and read books alone under bushes, I know you and the dreams you dream.

                And I know you, sarcastic teenager.  Hand-on-hip, head cocked, eyeballs rolled. You know everything.  Disgusted with the hypocrisy on this planet and the corruption in this society and the rules that don’t make any sense because they don’t honor the natural flow of things, the way things should be, could be, if only.

                Oh, I know you, young mother.  So tender and soft and scared to death that you won’t know what to do and when to do it, that you won’t have all the answers forever. Terrified that you’ll never get another good night’s sleep ever ever ever again, and what if every bad thing in the whole world happens to this one small, tiny, helpless, precious creature you are solely responsible for and love so much.  Love so much more than life itself, love more than you can stand, love more than you ever thought was possible for a human being to love in this fragile human body.  I know you and the hot bursting of your heart, the fierce determination of your mind, the reliable flow of your intuition to connect you to this web of life, ongoing and much bigger than you.  I saw you surrender and be swept away into the giving of motherhood and the taking of a new identity for yourself.  You look new and fresh but you are the same. You still carry the same dreams, then as now.

                Many years have passed since that little girl tip-toed barefoot through the summer grass toward the light of the porch at dusk with only one chapter left of Watership Down. Many years since that teenager huffed and puffed her way through Thanksgiving dinner. Many years since that mother was born at five minutes after midnight near the end of a July long gone. 

                Today, as I combed my wet hair after the shower, I looked into the mirror still streaked with steam and noticed familiar brown eyes looking back at me – ageless, deep, smiling eyes, holding space and time still for just a moment.  Ahhh, I said, I know you.  You have been there all along and you still carry the same dreams, then as now.

~Darci R. Hawxhurst