This weekend marked an occasion that brought me almost to tears. Tears of joy for certain, but tears all the same. My daughter stood on the cusp of beginning first grade. Truly a new world, a new journey, her own life opening before her. And yet it almost passed by unnoticed. You see, because we homeschool we didn’t have a need to participate in any of the few remaining rituals of this milestone. In this day, somehow shopping and buying have become substitutes for true cultural ritual. She needed no new special clothes requiring a trip to the mall, no supplies that could be bought anywhere locally, she didn’t need a fancy backpack or the latest Trapper Keeper (oops, I am quite sure that dated me terribly!). She isn’t even going to ride the bus or need to be walked to school. So what is a mother to do? I simply could not let the day go by unmarked.
So I sat and pondered exactly what it was that my daughter was about to do. Was it about her age? No, not really. She could just as easily have been unready for this for another year or so. Was it a new skill she needed to acquire? No, she may go all this year just singing, dancing and feeling her whole self come into being. But there it was… she was taking a journey. Her own journey, on a path that would lead her to a place that I could not predict, and could not follow. To a place that only she will choose. She stood on the edge of a bridge to her own path.
A plan began to form. As the weekend went on, the plan came into full flower. I offer it to you here as an example of one family’s creation of a ritual that filled a beautiful space in our lives.

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