She's dying to meet you.

My kids and I standing in Yayio Kusama’s Aftermath of Obliteration of Eternity at the Museum of fine arts in houston a few weeks ago.

She looks like me, only smaller. Not dark and foreboding as a shadow implies, she’s cute, plump, freckle-faced. She has a gap between her two front teeth that seems to widen when she smiles. And she does that a lot, particularly this morning, as she is supremely pleased with her dress she chose for school that day. It is a flower-girl dress that she’d worn to perform in a wedding about a year prior and that day, well, she could just barely manage to zip it up but yes, it still fit. It is made of thick, scratchy lace over taffeta, blue on blue, two blues that clash seismically into neck, wrist and ankle ruffles and she is pleased. Very, very pleased. And since Mom and Dad are rushing out the door for work and the bus is coming soon, there is no need for parental approval for her outfit choice. It is done.

Prancing into her first grade class quickly catches the eye of Miss Loving because, of course, but her attention is not praise but concern as she says, “Oh honey, it’s St. Patrick’s Day. Here, let’s pin this green paper clover on your beautiful dress so that you don’t get pinched.” This is the first dot of opacity, the black not yet bled to all the edges, she bares her gap because yes, she’s compliant yet still fabulous AND she’s thwarted all particular danger for the day.

By post-lunch recess that little paper clover’s leaves have started to curl although still a bulwark, she hits the release on the double doors that open the stale hallway into the bright sunshine of noonday. At that very moment, she could feel the energy of a herd behind her and before she has the chance to turn a glance, she doubles-over from a violent pinch to the arm so hard, the tears shoot out like a cartoon river.

“Who do you think you are?”

I’ve done lots of work over this story before, mostly in a way that blamed my parents for not parenting me in a way that I’ve determined appropriate: Why did they let me wear that dress to school? Why didn’t they remind me to wear green? But for the last few weeks of this New Year, I’ve been meditating on her and I’ve epiphanied. She’s my truest nature, my most innocent, softest place. And while she wants to protect me from getting pinched, she’s leading me back to the shiniest jewel inside of me. I’m following her this year. I don’t have a word or a mantra for 2023, I just have her and I’m satiated with curiosity and wonder as to where she’ll take me.