Recover we

It’s a sound I don’t recognize at first. I think it may be the opening riff of a song – a drumstick brush over a snare or that Raffi song about brushing your teeth, chh-chi-chi-chh, chi, chi, chi, chi. It continues, now with no deliberate rhythm. But it is not music at all it turns out to actually be something unheard of.

My sixteen year old daughter is scouring the tub with a scrub brush.

I can say, in no uncertain terms, it was truly music to my ears.

We are trying out an earn your rewards instead of giving consequences system.

You want to go out? Sure! As long as… and only if…

The other method of withdrawing privileges wasn’t working for us.

But the “as long as” and “only if” has changed the game. It’s become incentive for keeping the relationship right. I actually received an unsolicited apology from her the other day. I know ultimately it was because she wanted to go out with friends. The relationship being motivation enough to fix is learned through experience. It takes seeing the benefit over a period of time. It takes years and patience and training by example. I’ll take her practice apologies and peacemaking anytime.

So “as long as” you have been respectful, honest and present, in other words maintained a loving and trusting relationship (tough stuff for a teen), and if your homework and chores are done, most requests can be offered a yes. It’s been working so far.

I wouldn’t normally require her to scrub the tub, but last week she got the great idea to color her hair for the first time and wanted to do it by herself…

So I let her.

The first round lifted it to some reddish highlights. I could totally get on board with that. But it wasn’t the color she was going for. She wants to try again.

So I let her.

It lifts a few more shades – we are heading towards copper, but are at least still on the brownish side. She was hoping for a honey tone and is sure that with another go at it, she would achieve her desired locks. She does not want my suggestions or help…

There are several more rounds of this until her final results are sunshine yellow with tangerine stripes, she finally gives in and asks, “Mom can you help me?”

It’s like crescendo of symbols in the song of maturity, asking for help.

“Of course,” I say, as I bask in the reverberation.

The next day, after a nice evening bonding over the color correction, an exchange abruptly un-pauses the previous song that was playing on repeat. The song of eye-rolling, chore avoiding, and snark spewing that seems to come blaring out of nowhere most days.

But noiser than the attitudes and dirty clothes and porcupine quills; louder than the sound of their music, the tone of voice or the sometimes deafening silence of car rides, if you listen close you can hear their souls taking shape. You can start to make out the lyrics that they don’t even know they are singing, “I CAN DO IT, please stay close.”

For me, I hear it most when I am in tune with my own heart – silencing my own songs of expectation and history.

I hear it in the times I accept that she is a separate person with her own journey with her own lessons to learn.

I catch the song on those occasions I assume my seat as a ready audience member instead of at the podium attempting to play the conductor,

In the moments I can maintain a view from a vantage point of peace I can enjoy the lovely orchestration, that is her becoming…