Woody’s debut novel “The Butterfly Tree” is available at Amazon (click here), other online retailers, and orderable at all bookshops.
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A big-time New York City sportswriter once said, long ago, that his best pieces were when he quoted at length from columns by press-box legend Red Smith. Chuck Thomas, my esteemed predecessor in this space, humorously echoed: “Never write a bad column when you can steal a good one.”
Thusly inspired, I have stolen a new essay from award-winning novelist Dallas Woodburn, who will be a headliner at the “Books, Butterflies & Botanical Gardens” fundraiser benefiting the Ventura County Library Foundation on Oct. 15. (Tickets are available online at: vclibraryfoundation.org/events/ )
My daughter shares wisely…
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Yesterday, I sold the rocker from our nursery.
It was time. My younger daughter is two-and-a-half and was excited about putting up a “reading tent” in her room, in the space where the rocker used to be.
The woman who bought the rocker was delighted. It was for her pregnant daughter and it warmed my heart to imagine another family getting to use this item we had loved so much.
Yet still, watching the woman drive away with our rocker in the bed of her truck made unexpected tears spring to my eyes and a big lump rise to my throat.
It was a blinking neon-sign reminder that time is passing. So, so quickly.
I vividly remember when we bought that rocker, when I was pregnant with my older daughter seven summers ago, back when we were living in a small rental house. I remember setting up the nursery in what once had been my home office, a mix of excitement and nerves giving me giddy butterflies.
My baby daughter and I spent countless hours rocking in that chair. We rocked to calm her. We rocked her to sleep. In the early, early days, I nursed her in that rocking chair, listening to audiobooks and feeling like the two of us were the only ones awake in the entire world.
In those newborn days of early motherhood, time was molasses. I rocked her and rocked her, back and forth, back and forth, her head heavy in the crook of my elbow, praying for her to fall asleep – and stay asleep. It felt like she would always be tiny and I would always be rocking her.
Four years later, my husband and I were setting up the same rocker in a different house, in a different nursery, for our second precious rainbow baby.
Our younger daughter arrived and didn’t like to be rocked as much as her big sister. She preferred the standing-dancing-bouncing method. Still, she and I spent a lot of time, especially reading, in that rocking chair.
Why am I telling you all about this rocking chair? Because time is passing quickly. Children are growing up. Parents are aging. We all are aging.
And if we aren’t careful – if we aren’t intentional and purposeful and brave – time can be a cruel thief, slipping by like a cat burglar, stealing away our biggest dreams.
What were you dreaming about seven years ago? Do you hold a big dream in your heart that is older than my rocking chair? Are you still trying to “make time” for that dream? Do you tell yourself that you’ll make time to pursue it later; next season; next year; when life calms down and things are less busy?
The next piece of furniture we will likely offer away is my younger daughter’s crib, now converted into a toddler bed. I’m guessing we’ll get another two years out of it before she graduates to a full-on “big-girl bed.”
Two years from now, will your big-life dream be growing true?
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Essay copyrights Woody Woodburn
Woody’s new novel “The Butterfly Tree” is now available in paperback and eBook at Amazon (click here), other online bookstores, and is orderable at all bookshops.
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Woody writes a weekly column for The Ventura County Star and can be contacted at WoodyWriter@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @woodywoodburn.