Eight Rotations of the Sun: A Birthday Letter

 My darling girl, 

I am writing this to you on the very last day of 2022, months after your eighth birthday. We're getting ready to have fondue and chocolate lava cakes, our traditional New Year's Eve dinner, complete with an evening of games and friends, and movies. While these last few hours of the year have made me a bit reflective, I have indeed been thinking about your birthday letter for a while. Honestly, this year has been a bit of a challenge. We've had quite a few growing pains, a buckle fracture, several rounds of the stomach flu, and a scoliosis diagnosis, complete with a brand-new brace. 

At eight years old you are spunky and sassy; kind, generous, tenacious, independent, and a bit moody. You are social, imaginative, strong, and always up for a snuggle. You have taken up an interest in formal voice lessons by participating in a local girls' choir. Next Saturday starts your first week of volleyball, you recently finished your second season of soccer, and you remain committed to ballet year-round. You love anything chocolate, think Mac & Cheese is the ultimate comfort food, and raw bell peppers are your favorite after-school snack. You detest practicing your spelling words and loathe brushing your hair. You will put on glitter eye shadow at any opportunity and are obsessed with the Alexa & Katie TV show and the Babysitter's Club books. You will turn cartwheels at any opportunity and love a good long roller-blading session. 

There is a Methodist hymn, "This is My Father's World" that I have been ruminating on over these past few months. The hymn, originally a poem, by Maltbie Babcock, starts with concrete references to nature - "rocks and trees, or skies and seas" and the "lily white...rustling grass." This poem illustrates that nature is not only a visual spectacle to behold, but also gives these physical qualities a musical language. 

The phrase "music of the spheres" mentioned in the first stanza is a concept borrowed from Greek philosophy. The ancient Greek philosophers developed an idea that regards the movements of celestial bodies - the Sun, the Moon, and the Planets - as a form of music. Early astronomers explained that this "music" is not audible but could be felt by the soul, whereas early Christian thinking believed that musical harmony seen in nature was a metaphor for the divine order of God's creation. That this "music of the spheres" was not necessarily a perfect sound, but an illustration of God's love. 

In the final stanza, the poem shifts its focus from describing the visual and aural beauty of nature to the reality that all is not right with the world. It poses a question and offers hope, that with a broken world there is still beauty in our everyday. 

My darling girl, you have always had an amazing sense of inner strength within you. We saw within our first 24 hours with you that you were strong and tenacious. But this inner strength is even more apparent these days as you adapt to a new reality of brace wearing. You are determined to not let your brace slow you down: mastering your jumps in your roller blades while wearing the brace, perfecting your brace-wearing cartwheel, and managing your 18-hour per day schedule. You answer questions to your peers about your brace, confidently explaining your condition and pointing out the beautiful pattern you picked. 

This year, with eight rotations of the sun, I see a quiet maturity in you. I see a confident girl that shines with a brilliant light. I see a girl that lives in a messy, loud, broken world and finds ways to be courageous and strong, finding beauty in the least likely of places. 

I love you more than all the stars in the sky and the depths of the sea. 

Love, 

Mommy