Me or You?
Walking down the hall at school, on her way back from a sweaty PE class, Tate gets a strong whiff of ME. She thinks, it’s COVID - parents are still not allowed in school but my mom’s gotta be here. I smell her! She runs some school committees - maybe that’s why she’s here. Hmmm - where is she?
*
When Tate was little and I’d get home from working out, she’d nuzzle into me despite my telling her I was too stinky. She’d tell me she loved the smell of my sweat. I’d giggle at the silliness of such pure intimacy, while she inhaled my armpit.
*
Tate rounds the corner, toward her classroom. She looks around one more time, over both shoulders, and doesn’t see me anywhere. Then, it dawns on her.
OMG, she thinks, I think it’s me. I stink!
*
That night when Tate walks in, she immediately announces in her deliberate way that it’s time for her to start wearing deodorant. She follows with this story.
Again, I crack up. Mostly, this time, in gratitude and surprise at her sharing such a funny tale since lately, being anything like me or frankly near me has been so utterly resisted.
We laugh together.
I can only hope the tween years continue to be full of discoveries like this - of how she and I are both different and the same. And that we find the humor along the way, as often as we can.
