I Want to Know Their Names

She came bounding down the stairs, found my arms open, climbed on my lap. I held her, my nose pressed against her hair as she sat frog-legged and fetal, my baby-gone-girl.

I turned up the volume to the monologue in my head, heard myself shouting to treasure this moment, to hold onto it as long as she would let me. After three minutes of silence, of clinging to each other and this feeling of belonging, she turned her face to mine.

"Are we goin' ta go to my new 'chool today again?"

"No, babes. We're going to Caed's school today, to meet his teacher and new friends. We'll go to your new school again in a couple of weeks."

"But I want to go to my 'chool when my new pwiends will be dere."

"Your friends don't start school for a few more weeks. Right now, there are no kids at your school because it is still summer time."

"But Mom..."

"What hon?"

"I'm 'cared."

"Why are you scared?"

"Cuz I want to know my pwiends' names. At my new school. What are my pwiends names gonna be, Mom?"

My narrator kicked in again, pointing out this fear of the unnamed. How it strikes at 3 and at 35, and every age in between, when the moments we've yet to meet hijack the peace of the moments we know. I too want to know my new friends' names. I want to skip the effort to initiate relationships, the putting myself out there, the mining for commonality. I just want to know them, their names and their kitchen tables. I want this new-in-town phase to fast-forward. I want to know their names, and I want them to know mine.

"We'll find out soon." I heard myself say. "You'll have so much fun with your new friends, Dani-girl. You don't need to worry or be scared."

Did you hear, that, weird Inner Narrator Voice? We don't need to worry or be scared. Even though we are preemptively weary of the effort that being new and unknown requires. Even though we have no name for these next three years. We don't need to worry or be scared. We need to be right here, shaking hands with the moment we know, embracing it.
And in time, we'll learn the names, all of their names. In time, we'll know what to call these years.

This photo was taken in our last afternoon at Pine Point, a name we know, a place we love. There will be more just like this and altogether different, I'm sure. More names we will know. More places we will love.