Visions of A Girl
Today (well, granted today is gone), my little sister turned six years old. Six years. Six years ago I didn't realize how little we were. I remember so distinctly some of those days-Mom reading I Heard, Said the Bird (though Deanna and I knew already), telling people Mom was pregnant, sitting on Mom and Dad's bed talking about names, the day before and the day she was born, tearing ourselves away from her to go to Friday Night and the Hoedown.
Yet it's hard to really remember those times. Could this goofy girl really be that tiny, red little baby?
Looking through pictures for my class today (more about that soon!), I saw some adorable pictures of her at about two years old. I forgot she was so chubby! Seeing them, I remembered how she used to talk so funny. Now she says the most amusing, crazy things.
In honor of her birthday, I share a poem I wrote for my Creative Writing class. It's among my three favorite classes, in so far as the work I have to do. We had to write an ode or a list poem. I wasn't inspired at first, but then I thought of this and went with it. I am pretty happy with how it turned out, mostly.
Ode to My Sister
That plump little face dotted with red,
Edged with a double-chin.
Those crooked feet like a crescent moon,
Toes spread out like a fan.
That goofy one-sided smile
Caught through a point-and-shoot lens.
Those dark, damp rickrack locks
On the spongy blue back of a baby bath.
That math lesson brightened
By the steady breathing against my chest
Of a baby's body, lifted from a blue bassinet.
That delicious baby smell,
That delightful cry that nobody minds—
Memories drowned with seeing
A round, ruddy face crowned with curls,
Graced with a pretty smile.
A pair of feet toddling about
Or mounting to the upstairs hall.
A ponytail fountain with bangs grown out,
Cut short by chubby hands.
A first time washed in a big-girl bath,
All seen through my Canon lens.
A reaching of baby arms
To be picked up from the blue pack'n'play.
Siblings vying for her attention,
A partiality towards her brother's friends.
That adorable baby chatter
That annoying cry nobody wants to hear—
Images forgotten at the sight of
Questioning blue eyes set in a face
Alternating from smiling to furrowed brow.
The slender form in a bright swimsuit,
Feet encased in winter boots.
The girl with mangled mess of unbrushed hair
Taking a shower alone. The constant begging that whatever she’s done
Be captured with my Canon lens.
The pondering of birthday parties
And nights at Hannah's house.
The comfort of putting her arms around me
Preferred to the excitement of a blue toddler's bed.
The crazy, constant questions,
The whining that everyone minds.
Sights soon to be lost in an older girl's face
That’s always adding years,
Each as precious as before,
Yet different,
The changing visions of a girl.
-Jeannette Beerbower
September 2013
Well, someone promised me that she would sleep with me after her birthday ("Is that really exciting?"), so I shall join her.