Short jokes.

Every now and then I get to pick Grace up from school alone. Kids are different when its just you and them. I try to take time to be face-to-face alone with each of them during the day, and especially with my Gracie girl now, since she is out in the wide world on her own so much of the day. I want to check in with her and see how she's doing. I want to give her an opportunity to ask questions or tell me stories, share giggle confidences or confess a heartache. Our best talking times are in the car or right before I give her a final kiss goodnight, hanging out on her bed, at least one of us propped up on a gigantic stuffed elephant. And over the past week or so I've had lots of opportunities for both.

I'm sorry if this comes out garbled; I'm just sort of writing to get all these feelings out of me. As Steve can attest, I have a lot of feelings, and sometimes writing about them helps me sort things out.

Tonight as I stretched out on Gracie's pink Ikea heart comforter I looked at her shining face and thought about the little casual mentions of cruelty that had slipped out over the past few weeks on those solo drives home. One girl had told my girl she was the shortest kid in the whole school. Others whispered about her behind her back. They say she's "too little to be in first grade." They say all kinds of things that cut deeper than they know.

There's a lot of jockeying for power and position in this life. I get that. I do it, too, even though I try not to. We look around and we compare: she's prettier, he's more patient, they're richer, he's kinder, she's a better mother/writer/human being. And we look at ourselves, too, and think about how we're smarter or more thoughtful or whatever. I am learning that one of the keys to happiness is to stop doing that--stop comparing and just be authentic. I'm not perfect at it, trust me. But I'm learning. Anyway the point of my saying this is that I think a lot of cruelty is driven by this need to feel important or powerful or special. Hurting someone else--even, or maybe especially with words--is a powerful feeling. And i

So I just stopped writing in mid-sentence and closed the page and everything, because it was just too uncomfortable. But I can't get this out of my head/heart until its written, so two minutes later I'm back to it.

It's just, my kid shouldn't have to hurt for the same reasons I got hurt--still get hurt. Right? I know that's not how life works. But sometimes I just wish I could just flick away anything that might hurt my kids. It takes so much courage to send her out the door of our van sometimes. But I know it will be good. It will be strengthening. That's part of why Steve and I both wanted her in public school: it tests your mettle and refines your sense of self.

Still. It hurts to see them hurt. It hurts like nothing else hurts.

Tonight, on the Ikea bedspread, I asked her what she does when people are mean to her at school. I saw the hurt in her when she told me something new someone had said to her today, and I was proud because she stands up for herself, and she expects a lot of others, and she is kind. Those are the things I have been trying to teach her. Because people are mean, but that's not our fault. Our job is to be strong and take care of ourselves, but still to be kind.

I don't get angry anymore when people make short jokes. I used to. I discovered in high school that I was both quick-witted and sharp-tongued, and I shelled out some zinger retorts to rudeness that were very satisfying to deliver in the moment. But the thing about that kind of acidic wit is that it starts feeling different as the minutes and hours tick past. It turns black pretty quickly, and even if the other person had it coming (and I usually felt they did), it just didn't feel good to try to hurt them back. So I learned not to get angry. I learned to be quiet. I still hate it. I hate that people take license to joke about something I can't change. It is in my face every day--when I have to pull up a step stool to reach the top shelf of the pantry, in the awkwardness of washing the dishes in the kitchen sink that comes up just a little to high on me, in the constant ache in my neck from looking up--way up--to talk at people, in the frustration and embarrassment that zings through me as I strain to lift my growing kids into a shopping cart. Standing beside ten and twelve year olds who are already taller than me. In the car, adjusting the seat, gas pedal, seatbelt. Buying any clothes, even petite clothes, and finding that they still need hemming. Inches and inches of hemming. Trying adjust the shower head. Climbing on the counter to get things from the top of the fridge. Stepping onto the lowest shelf at the grocery store to try to reach the top row of cereal, or, just as often, asking a stranger for help.

I realize that these things might look comical. I get it. But at the end of the day, I am four foot ten, and I live in a world that was not built for me. I don't need anyone to point out to me that I'm short or small. I know. And now my girl knows, too.

Tonight I talked to her about how people have been mean to me, too. What did they say? she wanted to know. They called me leprechaun. Kids carried me around on the playground. (They do that to me, too, she said.) In high school people started resting their elbows on my head. I told her these things, and I could see it was nice for her to know we were in this together. She knows I like myself. She knows I'm fun and smart and cool and I love her, so being short isn't the end of the world. But sometimes the things people say hurt even when they're true. I told her that, too.

I told her people are still mean to me.

What do you do when people are mean to you, even though you're a GROWN UP!?

I try to be nice.

What do you say?

Sometimes I find something nice about them to say. Sometimes I just talk to them about things that make me happy, like my kids.

She advised me that I should also tell them to keep trying to be happy even when they feel grumpy, because being happy makes you happy. (I love this kid.)

I wish that different wasn't such a big deal to so many people. I couldn't tell you who the tallest or shortest person I know are. I couldn't estimate the heights of any of my friends. I just don't think about it. I know I have trouble relating with people who are different than I am sometimes--anything from age to vocation and many things in between--but I have tried to make different not a big deal to my kids. Different is normal. Different is interesting. Different is good. Gracie didn't know the terms "black" and "white" in relation to race until Martin Luther King Day in Kindergarten. She would talk about her friends and teachers with "brown skin" or "peach skin" in the same off-handed way she referred to friends with "curly hair" or "blue eyes." It was just a descriptor, not an identity or stereotype or whatever. It was like red shoes or a button nose. It was just part of a person, and it was the person that mattered, not the part on its own.

She came home to me that day in kindergarten and said, with total incredulity, "Did you know that some people call some people 'white' and some people 'black' even though skin is peach or brown?!?" She saw immediately, intuitively how completely ridiculous it was that a school, bus, or water fountain should ever have been segregated based on skin color. I loved it, because that "color-blindness" was totally cultivated. I worked for it ever so carefully. I wanted her to look at people and see people. Not color. Not height. Not disability. When she was a toddler and would shout things like, "Why is he in a wheelchair???" or "Why is that boy talking funny?" I would just casually tell her that everyone's body is different, and we'd talk about it for a second and then it was no big deal. It breaks my heart a little that sending her to school has taught her that people have prejudices I wish the world would forget. But I hope that she will be much more graceful than I have ever been at introducing herself to--and then really seeing--anyone. Even, and especially, when she isn't truly seen for who she is at first.

I guess that's all I wanted to say. It was a lot. But all this has been pressing on my heart, and it is nice to say it out. I hope it came out right. Not preachy but just real. I'm trying. We're all trying. And loving someone so fiercely really hurts sometimes. So let's just agree to try to say nice things, okay? Even when we're mad or tired or hurt. I'll try, too. Gracie is right. It feels better to be nice, anyway. It feels happier to try to be happy.