A few days ago, I stood in my upstairs bathroom braiding my hair. Often, in these rare moments when I am alone in my house, I will listen to an audiobook or play an episode of something on my phone, but on this particular day, I opted for silence. And, for the record, I’m using the word “silence” loosely here because five other people live in my house with me. It is rarely actually silent. Case in point: as I stood there parting my hair, I could clearly hear the sound of our main-floor piano. First my daughter, Norah, plunked out Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater—the only song she knows—and then my husband, Jake, took over with the chords to Heart and Soul.
The duet was really lovely and sweet, and it was also accompanied by the cadence of a screaming toddler. These two discordant sounds filled my quiet bathroom, and in that moment, I realized that so much of parenting is made up of these kinds of dissonant moments.
For instance, a few weeks ago, Jake and I walked our four kids down the bike path to our local ice cream shop, and then thirty minutes later, we walked home with three laughing, happy kids and one child who screamed the entire way for, really, no apparent reason. A few days later, Jake built a backyard water slide, and while two of our kids splashed happily, their voices were joined by the other two, who whined incessantly about the water being too cold. Even as I sit here typing this during quiet time at our house, the soothing tap of my keyboard keys is set against the clashing noise of bickering at the kitchen table.
Dissonance, by definition, is a lack of harmony. The sounds are harsh. The music seems wrong and conflicted. Composers use dissonance intentionally in their music to create tension and movement which makes us, as listeners, innately long for the resolve that comes only through harmony.
Don’t we long for the same thing in motherhood? We want the baby to stop crying. The kids to stop fighting. The chewing to be done with closed mouths (why can’t they close their mouths?). We wait for answers. We weep for losses. We understand that no single day is any one thing, so we navigate change and pain and confusion while the theme song to Spirit Riding Free delights our children in the background.
In all these things, we see the songs through. We move forward through the discord. And through this tension, we gain endurance. We sharpen our character. We make way for hope.
It took me about 15 minutes to braid my hair (novice braider with thick hair here). By the time I made it back downstairs, the piano had been abandoned but the toddler proved resilient. Jake and Norah sat in the oversized chair in our living room together, completely unfazed by the noise—not because they didn’t hear it, but because we have learned, in living our lives together, how to adapt to the music each day brings.
The sounds of summer are at full blast, and because I’m yet to meet someone who isn’t working through something, I know the splashing water, fireworks, and scooter wheels on pavement are joined by the dissonance of something unresolved. I also know that, as mothers, we keep singing. We keep finding the good. We learn from whatever each day brings, and we teach our children to do the same.
In it with you,
Molly
