{"id":550,"date":"2011-04-12T17:07:23","date_gmt":"2011-04-12T21:07:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.katrinakenison.com\/?p=550"},"modified":"2011-04-12T17:07:23","modified_gmt":"2011-04-12T21:07:23","slug":"perfect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/perfect\/","title":{"rendered":"Perfect"},"content":{"rendered":"

I began writing my first book, \u201cMitten Strings for God,\u201d the year Henry and Jack were five and eight. My husband and I were right in the thick of it, parenting two small children. We were busy, exhausted, finding our way, certain that everyone else must be better at this than we were. I remember struggling to accommodate and care for our two boys — so very different from each of us and, miraculously, complete polar opposites of one another as well — and wishing these two single-edition models had arrived with instruction manuals of some sort, so we wouldn\u2019t have to flail about so day after day, trying to figure out what they each needed and how best to give it to them.<\/p>\n

Looking back now, I wish I hadn\u2019t been so afraid. I wish I\u2019d trusted myself more. I wish I\u2019d believed that I already had what it takes to be a good mother, rather than constantly berating myself for not being smart enough, or patient enough, or wise enough, or loving enough. I wish I\u2019d had more faith in my kids. Faith that they could survive their bumpy, perilous journeys on the road to young adulthood and be stronger for the bruises endured along the way. Faith that, no matter how crazy or irrational or clingy or tearful or restless or angry or oversensitive or afraid they seemed at two or five or eight, they would eventually get it all sorted out and grow up and be fine. I wish I had laughed with them more and worried about them less. I wish I\u2019d allowed myself to sleep more deeply during those years, rather than staring at the ceiling so many nights and promising myself that I would do better tomorrow. I wish I\u2019d known, really known then, the way I think I know now, that every moment is precious, that life is short, and that it\u2019s all good, even when it\u2019s not.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Writing was a way for me to remind myself, day after day, what really mattered. In order to write, I had to gaze at my children with clear eyes; when I did, I was blinded by their radiance. In order to write, I had to become utterly quiet and still; when I did, I was amazed by the beauty that was my life. In order to write, I had to look into the truth of things as they actually were. When I did, my heart cracked wide open. What I saw, again and again, was the breathtaking miracle of our existence together: two children held in the sturdy embrace of two parents who loved them with a depth and a passion that I never did find adequate words to express.<\/p>\n

A couple of months ago, when the boys were both home for a weekend, we watched some old home movies of the two of them cutting up in the back yard, playing catch, impersonating their favorite umpires, goofing off and being funny and adorable and heart-wrenchingly young. There was footage of Jack impishly plucking herbs from the garden in the back yard and eating them straight out of his hand. A serious young Henry at the piano, playing his very first songs. I put my arm around Jack as the video screen went blank and jokingly said something like, \u201cYou see, you guys did have a good childhood.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMom,\u201d he said back, with rare seriousness, \u201cwe had a perfect childhood.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that is what I am thinking about now, as I consider a batch of fresh challenges, the challenges that come with the territory of being eighteen and twenty-one. Or, perhaps I should say, with the territory of being the parents of an eighteen and a twenty-one year old. Maybe it is all perfect just as it is, even if perfection isn\u2019t easy to see in this moment, from an inch or two away. Maybe, years from now, we will look back on this early spring of 2011 and recall not the worries about the lack of summer jobs, the hazy plans, the shortage of cars and money, but rather, perfection. The sweetness that is the essence of life, even when it\u2019s not as simple and straightforward as we might wish.<\/p>\n

My brother and his wife have had a tough winter themselves, with a two-year-old who\u2019s just had tubes put in her ears after months of infections and courses of ineffectual antibiotics, and a four-year-old who, in his first months of nursery school, has caught every bug that\u2019s come down the pike. Ask them to describe what life has been like in their house of late and \u201cperfection\u201d is not a word they\u2019d be likely to use.<\/p>\n

And yet, that\u2019s the word that occurred to me, when they sent along this photo of Angelique and Gabriel. Just one wild and crazy moment in the midst of yet another ordinary day. Just life as it is, captured, even as it turns into something else. Perfection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I began writing my first book, \u201cMitten Strings for God,\u201d the year Henry and Jack were five and eight. My husband and I were right in the thick of it, parenting two small children. We were busy, exhausted, finding our way, certain that everyone else must be better at this than we were. I remember […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,26,27,30,40,41,8,9,10,14,49,15],"tags":[117,173,296,324,338,477],"class_list":{"0":"post-550","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-acceptance","8":"category-faith","9":"category-family-life","10":"category-gratitude","11":"category-mindfulness","12":"category-mitten-strings-for-god","13":"category-parenting","14":"category-parenting-boys-parenting","15":"category-parenting-teens","16":"category-soul-work","17":"category-writing","18":"category-writing-and-reading","19":"tag-childhood","20":"tag-faith-2","21":"tag-mitten-strings-for-god","22":"tag-parenting-2","23":"tag-perfection","24":"tag-writing-2","25":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/600x600.png?fit=600%2C600","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/katrinakenison.com\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}