Better Than You Know Yourself

Later in the day yesterday, I found myself meditating still on the blooming inner lives of my children. It was Randall Jarrell who took on the persona of a mother and wrote about the way this interiority – the parts of themselves that they own entirely – changes the dynamic between parent and child. In “The Lost Children,” Jarrell says:

It is strange
To carry inside you someone else’s body;
To know it before it’s born;
To see at last that it’s a boy or girl, and perfect;
To bathe it and dress it; to watch it
Nurse at your breast, till you almost know it
Better than you know yourself—better than it knows itself.
You own it as you made it.
You are the authority upon it.

But as the child learns
To take care of herself, you know her less,
Her accidents, adventures are her own,
You lose track of them. Still, you know more
About her than anyone except her.

That is absolutely it. In our bedroom this morning, my oldest – who will be three in September – said, “but mommy, when are we going to go to the gym again?” When we asked what made her think of that, she looked up and said, “I was thinking of that in the nighttime. While the stars were out.”