Daughter
“Where’s your favourite place on earth?” my daughter asks. “It’s a simple question Mum.” And it is. But the choosing of just one place worries me. It renders the places left out, not good enough. Like that house I lived in for a month when I was eight years old. The place that my parents looked after. The house that wasn’t familiar to my siblings and me, the house that wasn’t our home. The house that was on a farm. A farm that had deer fencing. The deer fencing that orphaned a young goat, the goat we found and rescued. The rescued goat that became one of our family. The new kid. Gary. My favorite place on earth is not that house. It’s not the place I got married, we’re different now, we have a new place. Every day our ‘married’ is different and it is no place at all, and more than I imagined. My favorite place on earth is not a day I lay on the school field watching the clouds drift by, wondering how I was going to change the world. I’ve laid on many fields since then, and still cannot figure out how I am going to change the world. That field and those clouds are neither place I call my favorite place on earth. My favorite place on earth is not the Northern Lights or the Southern lights shining down on the beautiful people of the earth, the stars, busy, becoming our dear ones. These lights are a reflection of them and us and I cannot choose just one. My favorite place on earth is not your laughter daughter, because I love your tears too much. I love how you anger at the restrictions of life; how you scowl at me when bedtime steals your play. My favorite place on earth is not every year on my birthday when I am blessed with the presence of family and friends. It’s too much about me when really all I want is to celebrate them(and I do). My favorite place on earth is not where I met my dear friend who writes poetry in a timeless circle of daisies. She emerged even more than that first meeting and astounds me with her compassion and inclusion for the downtrodden. The hurt. The abandoned. Her daisy chain has become longer than the Great Wall. And my favorite place on earth is not the Great Wall or the blessing of sitting inside the Forbidden City with its history and stories of generations over generations. So many layers of life in stone and statue. And my favourite place on earth is not where I gave birth to my son, or the victory of raising that sweet human, where every day I wish I could show him the gift he is to my soul. How he is raising me. No daughter, my favorite place on earth is right here. Inside me. Getting to live this life. Experience its beauty. It’s dark. It’s light. And you, daughter.