by Aimee Taylor
She hasn’t been outside all day today, so reluctantly, I ask her to accompany me to walk down Commercial Drive to pick up our take-out dinner.
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“Keep up,” I bark at her on the hill. The sound of her ill-fitting wellie boots scrape along the sidewalk. In my periphery, I see her bend down to pick something up. I clench my fists.
“Look at this, Mummy.”
“Come on, love, our agedashi tofu is going to get cold,” I say without looking back.
The boots stop. I turn around to face her. If looks could kill. In her hand, she holds a leaf – a rainbow of colours from purple to orange to red – newly fallen from a tree above.
“Mummy, you’re always so worried about what we need to do next, you never take the time to slow down and notice all of the beautiful things around us.”
Ugh. Fuck me for raising such an articulate, self-aware seven-year-old, who calls me on my shit. I take her hand in mine. My other hand strokes her cheek.
“You’re absolutely right,” I say, “I’m sorry.”
We walk the rest of the way hand-in-hand. I try to slow my pace a bit. She tells me stories about kids at school. I think I’ve heard her, then she pauses, so I ask her a question. Apparently one she’s just answered.
“You never listen.”
This time, I don’t apologize, I snap at her. I am angry at her for knowing me so well. Better than I know myself, sometimes.
All the things she calls me out on are all the things I hate about myself, and the traits that I struggled with in my father. He was always stuck in his head, which, in my childhood, came across as a lack of interest in me. In this moment, I realize I am no different with my own daughter, and it hurts.
We get back home, eat our perfectly-warm tofu, and finish up the day. When she’s asleep, I promise myself to do better.
The following day, as we walk home from the school bus, up the back alley to visit our neighbourhood chickens, she stops in front of an old cedar tree, the top of which feels a mile away. She slips her hand into mine, tilts her head up to the sky, closes her eyes, and asks me to do the same.
“Just be quiet and listen,” she instructs.
We stand like that for at least a minute, as an orchestra of what sounds like a million different birds sings to us. Our own private concert.
When I open my eyes, she’s beaming at me.
“It’s your favourite sound. Isn’t it beautiful?”
I smile back.
“Yes, my love. And so are you.”
Aimee Taylor is a past retreat participant and co-facilitator of Callanish’s Younger Adult Circle. She is a writer, researcher, musician, mother and more.