Sweetfineblogpost

"We want time to slow down, but she wants time to speed up, always looking towards the next holiday, the next birthday."

That was the sentence...the line that sent me spinning for my own blog, eager for keys to punch. That was the solitary line in Jenna and Mark's recent blog post over at Sweetfineday. I've casually nodded in their direction before, maybe gushed over how beautiful their family is, and then came to the go-figure conclusion since they're very much super creative and boldly living a very deliberate life there in Brooklyn. Go figure that I wanna read more about them. They're interesting people. I'm kind of a quiet, regular dropper-in at Sweetfineday...like it were some corner coffee shop on Court Street in Carroll Gardens...you know, Zo and I would strike out for our morning walk downtown and back, and of course we'd stop and grab some steaming beans, an apple juice, and maybe some secret treat that Mom would find out about later, or not at all...and we'd run into Jenna, or Mark, and girls, and briefly catch up, as though we'd been long, lost friends, when really we were just city friends...morning stroll friends...same coffee shop all summer friends...because there's a difference, you know...there is. Ask anyone who lives in the shadow of Manhattan...there are city friends, morning stroll friends...coffee shop friends, and they're different than over-to-the-house-for-dinner friends. They just are. Anyway...that's how Sweetfineday feels.

The sentence, oh yes, the sentence...sorry. I read it, swooned a little (or a lot) and wanted so desperately to post it here. With it Jenna was making reference to her rapidly growing girl, her pre-teen, almost old enough to confuse you completely daughter, but not quite, not yet. I thought the line was beautiful...and accurate. Isn't that such a defining part of our lives? Slowing down and speeding up...or perhaps speeding up and then slowing down? Zoey wants to go, go, go, and we mostly want to go and stop, go and stop, go and stop...much different from our previous go,go, go...a sure sign that we're growing up ourselves.

In the summer I fell more into Zed's rhythm, and it felt like a billion dollars. With no work to anchor myself to it was full out go, go, go every day, from morning to bed time and it was exhausting, and exhilarating, and practically perfect. It felt pre-teen...child-like...comfortable. Somehow I think we need to find that in our everyday. For most of us we dedicate our waking hours to other people, and we forget about the pre-teen that's still inside of us somewhere. We catch glimpses of it. I see it in Grandad when his wheels are turning and he's inventing something out of the pieces of what seems to be nothing. I see it in Baachan when she stitches something up out of the scraps, and in Grandma when her and Zo are playing. It's there...that urge to go, go, go...we just do a fantastic jump of reining it in. Maybe we should let it out a little more often...you know, drop the reins and watch her drop into a full run. We all grow older, but we don't have to grow up.

BTW...how paralyzingly insightful, and beautiful is Jenna's post? SO sweet I felt nauseous.