Our Very Best Self

Tomorrow is Calvin's Book Four Graduation Recital.  He started working toward this one year ago.  Thirteen pieces. About an hour a day for 365 days.  It feels like a lot is at stake.  If he is nervous I can't tell.  Am I?  A little--but what is it that I want?  I want him to be his very best self.

What is our very best self?  What brings it out?

It isn't that I magically want Calvin to be some polished musician, some ultra focused kid, that he is not.  I don't need him to be better or different.  I want him to play at his ability level. I want him to be his very best self.

We want our children to have positive experiences.  We want them to perform at their ability level.  We want them to want to be good.  To meet their potential. So then comes the dance.  I've been trying to put the responsibility for being good back on his shoulders lately.  Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.  Sometimes he steps up to the plate and sometimes he is thinking about Harry Potter, or the operating system on his computer, or heaven knows what else is going on in there.

If I have said it once, I have said it a million times.  You can't tell someone to focus.  I know you have to draw kids in, to ask them questions--how was the balance?  How were the dynamics?  Even more specific:  how was the climax on the B section?  Still I tell him: FOCUS! Were you there?

"Mama, it's hard to focus when you have been playing this music everyday for so long."

I can tell when I am bringing out the best in him versus when I am provoking him to frustration.  I am only half proud to say that to this day I have avoided profanity as well as violence.  But still the words come out.  The looks come out.  He knows my looks more than my words.  My heavy sighs speak loud and clear.  It wasn't good enough.  It wasn't his very best job.

I remember preparing for his Book One recital.  There were stuffed animals for every song.  He was so little.  Each animal had a favorite song. There was one animal--that thought Calvin could do no wrong--a puppy I think.  He pretended to slobber on him and kiss him and tell him in a sugary voice how wonderful he was.  When he went to play that puppy's song, the quality was wonderful--his very best job.  A light bulb went  off in my mind.

All the kids really want is our love.  That is the key to being our best self.

When my husband and I started getting back in touch after being friends in college, many years had past.  For ten years we had sent Christmas cards and had he had even visited me a few times as friends.  As we emailed and spent hours on the phone long distance--getting back in touch--I realized that he only saw the best in me.  He made me want to be my very best self.  And so I was.

Now I search for the way to be that light for my children.  To see the best in them.  To see them as their very best selves.  And they will want to be.  And they will be.

Good Luck Calvin, but mostly, I just love you.