"Love her, but leave her wild"

I read this quote today and it resonated so strongly somewhere deep down in my psyche.

North Norfolk this summer

My second favourite film of all time is Born Free, but you know that. Joy and George Adamson’s journey to setting Elsa the lioness free symbolises so much of what I hold dear. If I am grateful for anything, it is freedom, and if I had to fight to the death for anything, it would be freedom. And you a free spirit and I am privileged to be able to spend my life with you. Watching you grow is like watching a seedling unfurl.

My strongest instinct has always been to let you be. For people to let you be. I have said it so many times in Dear Molly. I want you to have space to uncurl your leaves, to push off your husks and to flower, and wilt, and to flower once more.

With you, there is a gentle but firm barrier in terms of how I share my views. An invisible wall. A voice. One which whispers to me on the breeze and reminds me that I really don’t want to tell you what to say, what to think, what is right and what is wrong. Instead we talk about issues and I encourage you to care. I furnish you with as much information as I can and I let you process the world in your own way. I can’t explain what stops me but sometimes, especially in recent years, I have felt a gentle hand on my shoulder which has shown me the right way when I was leaning the wrong way. I can see it when I look back, and I want to thank it, whoever, or whatever it is, but it is gone. Just footsteps in the snow remain.

Our garden this winter

I fill my spare time with my hobbies. I read, write, paint and bake and I listen to Joni Mitchell way too much. And when you want to join me, you do and I cherish that. I can see that you know how happy it makes me when we paint together and I see you doing it now, because of that. Your joy at creating a pastel piece that you were really proud of recently was beautiful. And then I love that you chat to your friends online. Playing Roblox, Among Us and chatting on Houseparty has kept you sane in 2020. I can see that you have become more streetwise, savvy, confident, and so very capable with technology, through your 2020 downtime. I love that you are already showing me what to do with technology, which is the correct order of things. I showed my parents, you will show me. I learn from you, you learn from me. We exist together, shaped by our stories and held together by the threads of our past. 

Your pastel piece

Your compassion for everyone in your class, people who are less fortunate than you, your cat, your friends, your family, for me and for the world around you is just mind blowing, to me anyway. You will ask for guidance from time to time, and I will give it to you, but I know, deep down in my heart, that letting you be will serve you better than all of the plans that I could formulate for you. I know that you will hear me, you will take in who I am and I am certain that that will have more influence than anything I could ever tell you to do. Like our tomatoes this summer, the rambling plants which seeded alone, which were left to find their own way in a tumbledown jungle, bore the very best fruit of all.   

Our runner beans this summer

So as with our seedlings, I will watch you grow with the same pride that we had for our little runner beans this year. I will love you, but I will always leave you wild, my darling.

 “She was born free and she has the right to live free” – Joy Adamson, Born Free