Sarah Kay: If I should have a daughter ... | Video on TED.com

We don't have babies yet, but this might get us inspired :)



Sarah Kay: If I should have a daughter ... | Video on TED.com...click here!

Here's the poem by Sarah Kay that just brought me quite easily to tears. "A performing poet since she was 14 years old, Sarah Kay is the founder of Project V.O.I.C.E, teaching poetry and self-expression at schools across the United States."

Tread lightly, friends...

If I should have a daughter
instead of Mom,
she's gonna call me Point B
because that way she knows
that no matter what happens,
she can always find her way to me.
And I'm going to paint solar systems on the backs of her hands
so she has to learn the entire universe
before she can say,
"Oh, I know that like the back of my hand."

And she's going to learn that this life will hit you hard in the face,
wait for you to get back up just so it can kick you in the stomach.
But getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way
to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air.

There is hurt that cannot be fixed by Band-Aids or poetry.
So the first time she realizes that Wonder Woman isn't coming, I'll make sure she knows she doesn't have to wear the cape all by herself.
Because no matter how wide you stretch your fingers,
your hands will always be too small
to catch all the pain you want to heal.
Believe me, I've tried.

"And Baby, I'll tell her, don't keep your nose up in the air like that. I know that trick; I've done it a million times.
You're just smelling for smoke
so you can follow the trail back to a burning house
so you can find the boy
who lost everything in the fire
to see if you can save him.
Or else find the boy who lit the fire in the first place,
to see if you can change him."

But I know she will anyway, so instead
I'll always keep an extra supply of chocolate and rain boots nearby,
because there is no heartbreak that chocolate can't fix.
Okay, there's a few heartbreaks that chocolate can't fix.
But that's what the rain boots are for.
Because rain will wash away everything, if you let it.

I want her to look at the world through the underside of a glass-bottom boat,
to look through a microscope at the galaxies
that exist on the pinpoint of a human mind,
because that's the way my mom taught me.

That they'll be days like this.
They'll be days like this, my momma said.
When you open your hands to catch
and wind up with only blisters and bruises;
when you step out of the phone booth and try to fly
the very people you want to save
are the ones standing on your cape;
when your boots fill with rain, and you'll be up to your knees in disappointment.
And those are the very days you have all the more reason to say thank you.

Because there's nothing more beautiful
than the way the ocean
refuses to stop kissing the shoreline,
no matter how many times it's swept away.

You will put the wind in win-some-lose-some.
You will put the star in starting over, and over.
And no matter how many land mines erupt in a minute,
be sure your mind lands on the beauty of this funny place called life.
And yes, on a scale from one to over-trusting,
I am pretty damn naive.
But I want her to know that this world is made of sugar.
It can crumble so easily,
but don't be afraid to stick your tongue out and taste it.

"Baby," I'll tell her, "remember,
your momma is a worrier
and your poppa is a warrior,
and you are the girl with small hands
and big eyes
who never stops asking for more."

Remember good things come in threes
and so do bad things.
And always apologize when you've done something wrong.
But don't you ever apologize
for the way your eyes refuse to stop shining.
Your voice is small, but don't ever stop singing.

And when they finally hand you heartache,
when they slip war and hatred
under your door and offer you handouts
on street-corners of cynicism and defeat,
you tell them they really ought to meet your mother.