She is Marley, my granddaughter. 6 years old and a Chatterbox Princess.
We don't see Marley as much as we would like. When we still lived in Alabama, we could drive a couple of hours each way for a visit as often as we wanted. Or take her home for a weekend. Then we moved to Texas, a day's drive away.
To make up for the distance between us, we have gone and picked her up for a month's visit, just as we did last summer. Stacey and her dad work long hours, and Sarah and Andrew are busy with other pursuits, so Marley and I have been spending our days together. Swimming. Gym. Grocery store. Craft store. Playing Wii. Feeding the birds and cleaning the birdbath.
In the year since her last visit, she has become even more articulate, more persuasive, more apt to argue her point as to why she must have glitter markers or needs goggles and a snorkel for the pool. Just on the verge of first grade, she is well on her way to a brilliant career at arguing cases in a court of law.
And she is the most outgoing child I have ever met. Walks up to every stranger she meets to introduce herself. At the park, at the pool, at the gym playroom: "Hi, my name is Marley, what is your name?" Today at the pool she swam around in her swim ring like a shark looking for new victims. Scanning the entry gate. Anytime a new kid walked in, she went straight for the sales pitch, "Hi, the pool is great, I'm Marley, are you coming in to swim?"
I sure don't know where that brashness comes from. Both her mom and her dad are quiet and rather reserved. The rest of us? Stacey and Sarah are both fairly introverted and cautious. The past few years Andrew has become gregarious and social, but he was nowhere that brash at that age. As a matter of fact, I don't know any adults who work a room as well as she does. That includes me.
So I wonder at what point her natural ultra-extroversion will give way to more caution and circumspection. Reality and experience have a way of dampening natural exuberance, and since I foresee she will swing more toward the middle eventually, I am troubled to think of a tempering of that powerful charm. And I dread the heartbreak that will cause it. Because I know that's what happens when you put your smile and your heart out there for everyone to see. Sooner or later you get trampled a couple of times. Or a hundred.
So I bask in that brilliant sunshine she puts out, even if it will only last in this form a few more years.
Even if right now she hardly every shuts up.
Especially because of that.
So I wonder at what point her natural ultra-extroversion will give way to more caution and circumspection. Reality and experience have a way of dampening natural exuberance, and since I foresee she will swing more toward the middle eventually, I am troubled to think of a tempering of that powerful charm. And I dread the heartbreak that will cause it. Because I know that's what happens when you put your smile and your heart out there for everyone to see. Sooner or later you get trampled a couple of times. Or a hundred.
So I bask in that brilliant sunshine she puts out, even if it will only last in this form a few more years.
Even if right now she hardly every shuts up.
Especially because of that.
