Yes, I have a daughter. She’s a lovely young girl, and far more like me than I’m willing to admit. She used to like snakes and always laughs about farting and bathroom humor. She beats up her older brothers, always has, and loves to draw unicorns, neo-pets, and warriors beheading bad guys in the bloodiest way possible. I call her “the Princess” in my writing, and she is sometimes all-girl, and sometimes all-boy. Love her, get disgusted with her, fray your last nerve, and still, she’s the apple of my eye, the gravy to my mashed potatoes, the something-good to my whatever fuzzy-warm metaphor you choose. Stevie Wonder sings “Isn’t She Lovely?” in the background music of our lives.
So, what’s it all about, having a daughter? Heck if I know. I just know that when the nurse put her in my hands the first time, and she weighed so much for a newborn that jokes were made about her future as an NFL linebacker, and she peed all over everything, she captured my heart and I would forever after be her thrall.
All three of my children like art and can draw well. Of the three, my daughter is the one who best understands “cute”. She is capable of drawing big-eyed critters that make you go “awww.” She has a color sense that meshes seamlessly with my own, loving primary colors, especially Maxfield Parrish blue. She understands my sense of humor (a feat of understanding more impressive than uncovering the secrets of nuclear physics). She is made up of the best parts and worst parts of me as well as many of the good parts of her mother. So, if I die tomorrow, or am changed into a small blue mushroom by an alien magician, she will be the one that carries on the torch of my creativity. Let’s hope that doesn’t mean that she will use that torch to burn things down.
Do you have a daughter too? If you do, I have great sympathy for you, but also great joy. She is the sunshine of my life.
Catch a Falling Star 