Visiting Daughters

Last week I had the privilege of being part of my grownup daughters' lives. I drove through the fresh green of spring to Burlington VT where Alison lives in a community of young idealists. The neighborhood smelled like the early summer of my childhood , the light is northern, the houses frame with steep, snowshedding roofs. Everyone had been released from winter, was out biking or walking or sitting on porches. We hiked along the shores of Lake Champlain with her boyfriend Jonathan, finding new wildflowers and numbing our bare feet in the icy lake .
Lately I've been struggling with a feeling that my time is past. Playing the violin is more painful, the kind of dutiful obedience I've practiced for so long doesn't work for inspiration. My generation has thought of itself as ever youthful and creative, and all of a sudden technology and new ideas are racing ahead of us and our bodies are breaking down. The world seems like a hopeless mess as well.
But this kind of visit gives me great hope. It is as it should be that new generations believe they can save the world, and rather than give up, I feel that a new something is in me at this stage. I am more contemplative and able to enjoy quiet time with people and to sink into nature. My daughters and their friends are choosing to have fewer things and more time for doing what they love. I watched Alison teach Music Together, as I had watched Emily on another trip, and marveled at their creativity and infectious sense of fun. The children themselves, another generation younger, are another dose of hope, dancing wildly or watching wide eyed from the safety of their mothers' laps- everything is brand new. When I was with Emily I saw a show of the therapeutic riding program she teaches in. Children with varying disabilities find physical and emotional balance on horseback and the instructors give and receive a lot of love. Emily also showed me a video of the lively end of season Musicshare of her piano students. Even if my daughters never have children of their own, they are nurturing the next generation.
I am very lucky that these wise and creative young women were born to me 32 years ago. Now they host me, planning activities, cooking for me, telling me their thoughts. I sat in the serenity of Emily and Colleen's apartment thinking how peaceful it was, and how glad I am that my daughters have made their own lives in ways I could never have planned . I am learning from them how to live with integrity.