We've entered into a new phase of the year: summer in southern Louisiana. The brutality of the sunlit days never fails to amaze me. I try to finish what must be finished early in the day as stepping outside for only a short time leaves me dripping in sweat and exhausted from the heat.
This morning, my daughter and I are planning on taking her three year old daughter out to the LSU Botanical gardens to frolic in the sunflowers as small children are apt to do. Maybe.
We took her last year and she insisted on not being interested in the sunflowers at all. She showed a brief interest in the roses but vastly preferred the slide to anything Mother Nature had to offer.
She's the perfect Ace of Wands: at the beginning of her journey: smart, fierce, independent. She knows her own mind and doesn't care about societal expectations. If she doesn't want to frolic in a field of flowers, she won't.
I love that my daughter is encouraging that independent streak in her, giving her room to grow and be her own person. I worry that I worried too much about what society expected when she was a child, but my daughter never ceases to amaze me in her intelligence and her competence. She is better than I was. I love her for that.
Maybe Annabelle will frolic in the flowers at the age of three. Maybe she won't. Either way, she will be Annabelle. She will be fiery and fierce, all fire and independence. Never let the world dim that brilliance. You are better than they will ever be.