Fearless Motherhood

We are arranging stones on the kitchen counter, Madeleine and me. She is eight and I am thirty-eight, though in this moment age has no meaning for either one of us. Earlier in the week, happy and alone, I had combed the Oregon Coast for these treasures-tiny flat rocks in near perfect circles and ovals, made smooth by the sands of time and the rush of waves sweeping the shore. I don't know why it seemed so important at the time to collect so many, but no reasons are necessary with Madeleine. "The only question is how to sort them," she says. "How to decide which ones belong in the jar from the antique store and what to do with the rest."

We take the rocks out of the big Ziploc bag one by one, rinsing off the sands of the Pacific, her hands my own in replica. We set them out to dry on paper towels in long neat rows. I remember what they looked like scattered by the sea. She marvels at how pretty they look in perfect lines on our counter, made warm by morning sun.

This is a task we can do together, and the rhythm we create makes for a kind of calm that brings us peace. She is only eight, but already her legs grow long and spindly like an egret on the shore. Day by day, she enters more deeply into a slightly more grownup version of herself, and her sharp wit and bold smile captivates the boys who feign torment in her presence on the playground at school. She is fearless in ways that demand respect from adults and children alike, and people adore her for it.

Nothing delights me more than the intensity in those brown eyes full of wild, unbridled spirit. Still. I have to confess that some nights the voice of Parental Concern is out of control. Fearless now, it whispers. But what if something happens to make her lose her confidence? What then? I play out different scenarios in my head arranging them in my mind like so many rocks on my kitchen counter. No one wins at this game, but still I play the same way that people imagine what they would do in an earthquake or how they would save the ones they love in a perfect storm. It feels like part of the job description as someone who deeply loves another to keep one eye out for the world coming to an end. It seems like the responsible thing to do, I tell myself.

Or is it?

What if the very thing you hope to be a protective force of good-that thing you have been taught to call healthy fear-actually works against you to collapse your most powerful resource-the courage to be yourself? And what if all the warnings of possible disaster send a very different message-that we cannot trust our own instincts to guide us in the world no matter what comes our way?

I listen while Madeleine advises me on the arrangement of the stones. She is busy with plans, rocks mere metaphors for all the ways she longs to order her future. She gives me twenty ways we could do it, standing on the counter to get down different jars from the far recesses of the kitchen cabinets. I see in her my longing for perfection-some sign that I have found the safest way, the most sure path to take me to a place called Perfect. I picked only the most beautiful stones, and she will finish it now with the just right jar. But deep down we know-even at eight and thirty-eight-that no such place exists.

"Mom," she says finally, dissolving into laughter. "What if it works out no matter what we do? No matter how we do it?"

How can it not be true? I send her out the backdoor as wild and unruly as the wind that blows the ocean waves, the joy of her fearless heart washing over my own and every stone I carried home from the Oregon shore.

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