family life

On being a cardigan

JOY journal

“If adventures will not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad.” ― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

Our daughters are potted plants, yearning for the deck or porch after a long season indoors. It’s time for big sky, for wind and rain. It’s time for the occasional dandelion fluff to drift by and add an unplanned punch of color to their carefully tended lives.

This serendipity is OK.  For God is there in the earthy soil, in the air, in the sky.

Our daughters are sleek rockets, half out of the silo but built for the express purpose of being launched. Launched. It’s time for speed and inky black skies glittering with stars. God is there in this vast unknown, as well.

Our daughters are birds, one fledged and surprising us with flights that grow longer and stronger by the day. The other is still perched on the edge of the nest we so carefully built but flapping her wings. It’s time to fly and she knows what to do. So, too, does God.

Our daughters are women – by the grace of God, by the support of a village, by years of parenting that have left us panting a bit with the exertion of it all but pleased.

What am I? I am also a woman. I am both a bird ready to stretch her wings for a second time and a ginger-colored cat napping in warm window well. It depends on the day or, more so, the hour of the day.

I am fond of stars but am not so much a rocket now. I am more like a cardigan sweater. Handy to have around when one needs it. Easy to tie around the shoulders – out of sight but close enough – when one doesn’t.

Perhaps I am less something Mr. Rogers would wear, however, than a pale blue cardi with lady bugs knitted into the pattern. Perhaps I have a ribbon edge or fancy buttons shaped like spring blooms or tiny crystals.

Perhaps I am at least part of what these amazing women will need when this day or that one turns chilly. That’s enough. It is time and God is there, here and anywhere our wings might take us.

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After a long career writing for local newspapers — and, on rare occasions, for publications such as The Washington Post — Nora is enjoying a second wind as an innkeeper. She still blogs and does writing projects of special interest. She lives in Appalachia with her husband and a dog named Finn, who is beside himself with joy when the family's daughters have college breaks.

25 thoughts on “On being a cardigan”

  6. “Perhaps I am at least part of what these amazing women will need when this day or that one turns chilly. That’s enough.” Nora, I think this is possibly the most beautiful description of what it means to transition into new stages of motherhood.

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    1. Awww, thanks! It’s feeling like a beautiful season — if we can get to it. We’re in the throes of graduation stuff and hauling the older one back from school and to an internship…. 😀

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  11. Having raised two daughters (as a Dad), I found myself nodding as I read your post. Our daughters are now in their 50s, and they still call every week to talk with their Mom.

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