For Eva on her 20th birthday
Dear Eva,
You are four and three quarters. today after camp I invited you on a date. We went to get ice cream. You got one scoop, half chocolate and half strawberry. I got Half strawberry and half vanilla. We each had a mini carrot cake cupcake. And we shared a hibiscus iced tea. Really I got myself the ice tea but as soon as I had one sip I knew you would love it. I gave you a sip and you loved it so much. We ended up sharing it and we put half in your water bottle. We sat together at the green table under the tree, the table you chose. When we finished eating we kind of sat there for a while saying nothing. You snuggled up against me as you drink your hibiscus tea and we watched the road and the trees. Afterwards you practiced running to different destinations on your own without holding my hand. The wheelbarrow! The cow! I’ve had you holding my hand quite close these days after you ran so far away from me after camp a few weeks ago. Way too far.
Driving home we listened to our favorite radio station. Over the music you told me that you want to go to the emerald city. The real emerald city.
GG (my mom) visited recently and read you and Patrick the whole Wizard of Oz. Day by day and night by night you read the whole book together. Ever since then you have been dressing up as Dorothy, pulling together pieces of the costume from things around the house. The blue and white wrap dress daddy got you from Topanga on his work trip, that’s your Dorothy dress. You got a big basket from the garage, The basket we used in our wedding in the bathroom to offer guests special items they might need. You also got a white cloth to put inside. And your soft blue unicorn, also from Daddy’s work trip, that is your Toto. You did all of this before camp one day. These are the reasons it takes us so long to get out the door and at the same time your freedom to express yourself and make some thing from nothing is such a gift. (you haven’t seen the movie yet and I am so grateful for that.)
And now you are ready for emerald city. You told me that you know it’s real but that you don’t know how to get there. You asked me how to get there. I said I don’t know how do you think you could get there? You said I don’t know let’s ask the scientists. (I’m guessing that’s because You spent the last 16+ months as a child of a pandemic.)
I said sometimes when I want to know something I ask my heart. You said, I don’t know how to ask my heart. I paused contemplating my answer to that and then realized I didn’t need to.
then Peter Gabriel, in your eyes, came on the radio. I turned it up and started singing along. You asked me to stop singing along. So I did. I slowly saw you having an aha moment. You said, that’s it. That’s it. That’s it. That’s it!
Oh how I wanted to know what it was! Did you find the answer to where Emerald City was in your heart? Did Peter Gabriel help you get there? I wondered and waited. I did not say anything yet.
I will go to Emerald city for my 20th birthday, you announced. The whole family will go. We will take an airplane but I don’t know where it is or how to get there. I will be Dorothy and you can be the lion. Can you ask Sofie to make you a costume? (Sofie is our neighbor who is 10. She lives around the corner and knows how to sew.)
Sweet girl, I will show you this when you are 20. I will tell you that the emerald city is inside you. We will look back and realize how real the emerald city was and is and how alive it is in your imagination and in your heart.
We have A decade and a half of birthdays before you turn 20. In a few months you will turn five and we will have a wedding cake just like you requested. I can’t wait to keep listening to you talk to me while you’re in the car seat in the backseat. I hope I remember how much I learn from you when we have one to one time. I hope I remember to keep listening to what you are wondering about. I hope that when you do go to the emerald city that you take me with you. Or at least send me a postcard.
with love, from the Emerald City of my heart,
Mommy
July 15, 2021