About Miranda

She is almost 11 years old, gliding effortlessly on the ice.  Miranda did not come into ice skating by inclination – she’s not naturally talented in this.  She got to where she is through hard work and dedication, and I think that’s a better way to get anywhere.

Adolescence is rushing upon her like a train.

She appears to be half legs in her skating outfit.  She is outwardly calm, but inwardly a mass of contradictions and emotions.  The constant sea-change of girl’s relationships at this age – who’s friends with who, who doesn’t like who, etc. – occupies much of her mind. 

She’s very smart, and very kind.  She and Dot conspire with each other like thieves – this is an important relationship for both of them.  Dot can’t take her eyes off Miranda, her example of how a big girl is and lives and moves through the world.

My eldest daughter had a hard early life.  When her mother abandoned our marriage (encouraged by the feminist study groups she was a member of at the time), she felt that I would have no interest in raising her – Miranda was a consolation prize for a long-term project abandoned almost at the gate.  The early draft of her divorce settlement restricted my hours with her, and I fought that tooth and nail.  Lifetime relationships are lifetime relationships to me, and nothing was going to keep me from trying to be a good dad.

I won that battle, but conflicts over her school schedule and the little kids’ therapies, and the desire not to truck everybody back and forth in the car for hours on end, have meant for the past couple of years that I don’t get to see her but every other weekend, and even then she’s away for several hours for her skating.  But I do try to carve out some private time with her when she’s here.

She’s getting to be a teen, and that means she’s getting deep, and developing secrets like I did at that age.  There were parts of her life that I’ve missed, and now there are parts of her life I’ll never be privy to.  We love each other, and enjoy spending time together, but we’re also strangers to each other in a way.

But I’m grateful that I can give to her a brother and a sister who she obviously cares for deeply.  I’m grateful she can share confidences with me and thinks it’s OK to relate all these confusing stories about her friends and school.  I love her so much, and I do not want a life without her.

Comments

[jerome_howard]

Here in the neighborhood blades are suddenly a much better choice than wheels.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/268003_ncenter26.html

I feel bad for my favorite Rat City Roller Girl, Betty Ford Galaxy. It's such a great name, now what's she gonna do with it?

About the time M was born there was a Newsweek article on 'tweens - kids 9 to 12. They're not little kids, but they're not quite teens. One thing that struck me was a comment by a shrink who said that these 9 to 12's need something to keep their brains focused. The big thing at this age is a razor sharp interest in a given thing. It's part of a larger process of brain maturity. Certainnly skating fills the bill in that sense given that - while physical - is not without a mental component.

Now if I could only find a way to keep The Junior Member of the Firm equally occupied.