It's amazing to be girls

Thoughts on female connection. Also letter of recommendation no. 097

I got home from a work trip on Sunday afternoon and when I opened the door, my daughter Laura sprung up from the floor where she was playing with the baby and in the most sincere and heartwarming tone of shriek, she screamed, “Mommy!” as she ran over to hug me.

I felt so immediately and intensely and unreasonably loved. And happy! I could not believe the ecstacy pouring out of her. I absorbed some directly on contact.

A few hours later she said, “I’m so happy you’re home, dad is so bad at doing my hair,” and it occurred to me that the reason she was so elated is because she missed having good hair! I laughed and was like, “Ohhhh that’s why you were so happy when I got home,” and she was like, yeah (as in, duh) and Madeline then was like, “Also, dad doesn’t put enough honey in the yogurt.”

Later I was on my run and the mental clean-up was in progress and it came to me while I was turning the bend that fuses the upper west side to east that these small gestures — a mother’s ability to nail the appearance her daughter wishes to see of herself, the appropriate ratio of honey to yogurt, or just the familiar comfort of having her serve the breakfast — are the lifeline of The Bond.

This could be the bond between mother and daughter, it could be the bond between sisters or partners or even just friends but these little moments that are disguised as completely inconsequential are actually what make the connection.

I think for a long time I had the idea that what people need to see in me to feel connection are straightforward and easy-to-decipher expressions of integrity, morality, strength of character and safety but I’m realizing now that what we bring to The Bond plays out far more playfully — with surface gestures like a random Facetime call at 2 a.m., while you’re abroad and you know that your friend is getting ready to go out for the night, or a text messaged photo of a pair of shoes that you can’t figure out whether to keep or not. A consistent joke you make over and over that never gets any funnier but does somehow turn into an intimacy or a depth between you and the recipient.

This is in fact where deep connection starts. It’s a gateway to the ecstacy, authentic and honest, that can disarm you and make you feel safe enough to take the risk of showing yourself in full feeling. You can’t help but absorb it on contact.

Sometimes I think I’ve been blessed with so many daughters because I grew up with so many brothers (3). That I never got to learn the confidence that comes from established placement within The Bond until much later because I didn’t have sisters.

It takes maturity to be able to build it with friends. Like it has to happen after enough self-esteem and awareness has been initiated on both sides that neither of us are throwing darts at the other so we can escape the shitty ways we feel about ourselves.

I watch my girls fight and it gets so mean but within seconds sometimes, no matter what was said, how bad it got, how deep it cut, it is just as quickly lifted. Made light. Laughter. Water under the bridge of the intimacy that is strengthened by the unrest and subsequent cackles. There’s a confidence that forms when you know you can come back from the fight. That allows you to learn how to be for yourself and with yourself and how to be for and with another. This feels like everything to me.

I look at my daughters and think with so much relief: God, it’s amazing to be girls.

Still ahead: fashion pants from Lululemon, more good stuff from Massimo Dutti, The Row’s ‘Emi’ (and its more friendly alterego), a tight Etsy jewelry edit and one last small note on sport.