Happy Birthday, Raya

Dear Raya,

I write this on the day of your eighth birthday. This morning, I came down as usual to make breakfast and pack lunches, and I heard your excited footsteps running down the stairs at exactly 7 am. You dove into the kitchen, smiling, and when I gave you a hug and wished you a happy birthday, you squeezed me really really tight and beamed at me, "Thank you, mommy!"

birthday dinner at The Cheesecake Factory

That brief morning interaction pretty much sums you up--how you have been since you were born, and how you remain as you embark on the ninth year of your life: positive, energetic, excited, and ever-hopeful.

the straight back of a dancer

Conversations about you between your dad and me often involve the question of how to teach you balance: how to support you in your biggest enthusiasms--dancing, reading, writing, socializing--and at the same time teach you the value of downtime and mental rest. You are always on--always have been on--and, given a choice, would never not be dancing, reading, writing, or socializing. That quality of being alive to everything--what others call love of life, zeal, or passion--is the reason everyone that meets you loves you. It is also the reason we feel richer for having you in our lives.

Over the past year, you have read exactly 141 books (yes, your mom keeps count), and  you have gone from dancing a couple of times a week to frequenting the studio on an almost-daily basis. Your dance teachers assume that you are always in motion, and they stare at us in disbelief when we tell them that at home you almost always read or write. Your teachers in school praise you for being studious, diligent, and fully engaged in class; your focus, we are told, is razor-sharp, and you seem to not only do school well but also relish it.

For your birthday, you requested a writing desk, and, even though there are places in the house where you can write, we felt that your commitment to storytelling over the past couple of years warranted the additional expense. You have at least a dozen journals going at any one time, and you have started many stories with many imagined characters. At dinner tonight (you asked us to eat at The Cheesecake Factory for the first time), you spent at least ten minutes reciting from memory the opening paragraphs of a story that you had been writing in school all day. I was shocked that you appeared to remember what you had written verbatim, and when I asked you about it, you exclaimed, "But mommy, it's my story! Of course I know it!"

In other words, my love, you are a beautiful study in contradictions: depending on the time of day, you are either engaged in the most contemplative mental activities--reading and writing--or you are spinning in circles, learning the chacha, the jive, or the rumba. We love each half of your personality, and we question continuously how our lifestyle--the schooling, the dancing, the quiet times--can help you develop your full potential.

your book choice during our recent visit to a bookstore; would a mother-English-teacher say no?

As a social creature, you also possess a kind of dual nature. You love being with and talking to people almost as much as you like reading, writing, and dancing. However, you are very particular about who you are willing to befriend, and at school you spend as much time playing with others as you do reading books and writing stories. You are still deeply attached to your best friend from the preschool years, Phoebe, and you genuinely believe that no other girl is as compatible with you as she is. When Phoebe comes over, you spend the bulk of your time talking to her and reading together, silently. It's a friendship that you cultivate religiously.

birthday sleepover with Phoebe and Emiliana

This past weekend your dance studio had its anniversary celebration. During the second-day's morning performances, you opened the festivities with a chacha with Danya, your male teacher, and as soon as the music began to play and you started to twirl your magic, the crowd erupted in enthusiastic applause. Even though your skills are still those of an advanced beginner, your presence on stage is unmatched among girls your age. Everyone notices you, and many people come to us after they've seen you dance in order to tell us how happy your dancing makes them.

Your effect on other people seems to be a recurrent motif in your life since you were teeny tiny, and we continue to watch in awe as you develop into a wonderful, poised, self-possessed little girl. I am not eager for you to turn yet one year older--and move one year closer to the time when you would leave us--but I am thrilled for you, because you are thrilled yourself, to enter this next year in your life. It's hard not to be excited when you are.

Happy eighth birthday, my love.