Layers

I had a picture come into my mind yesterday. I was reflecting on our experiences since moving here, and specifically thinking of what Hannah has lived in these past four months.

I was picturing Hannah as an old-fashioned paper doll - one dimensional and simple. Just the basic facial features with little else but a few embellishments. As I reflected on all of the things she's done and challenges she's risen to some layers appeared - as though each milestone and challenge added a texture laden, billowy soft layer to the simple paper-doll figure. Each layer enhanced the one beneath it in ways you wouldn't expect until you saw them together.

Can I show you some of these layers?

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Imagine walking into a classroom in your new school. You're a 10 year old girl and you don't know a soul. You've never been the social butterfly - always preferring to stand back a few steps and watch and wait first. Your heart is beating out of your chest, but you walk up those steps into the classroom because it's what you have to do. You expect the best because that's the spirit that's in you. You walk out of that classroom at the end of the day excited for the next, undaunted by the relationships and familiarity that already exist. And soon you are surrounded by warm faces and a girl who you call "friend". It sure didn't take you long - you embraced that challenge and created a beautiful first layer.

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You have always been reluctant to talk on the phone. There's something about it makes you feel awkward and uncomfortable. That's why you laugh when you tell me what you did at school, and are scheduled to do again -- you're an office monitor at lunch time who gives the secretary a break and ANSWERS PHONES and pages staff members over the intercom! You're not sure how you ended up with this job, but it doesn't matter. It's fun, it's important, and it makes a layer shaded with growing confidence.

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One day you arrive home from school with an important letter. Your teacher has selected you to be one of two students from your school to take part in the district-wide "Creative Challenge Program" for gifted students. It means working with other students from across the city in a strange school for six sessions in a workshop environment geared for accelerated learners. I drive you to the new school one cool fall morning. We meander the unfamiliar hallways and arrive at the classroom. You shake hands with the facilitator and walk in, unencumbered by fear. You spend the day learning with strangers. Your third layer is created, gleaming with bold awareness.

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Your "Education through the Arts" school is rich with opportunity. Every day there is a listening program of classical music and commentary broadcast on the intercom. You sign up to be one of the narrators, taking one week's script and studying its challenging vocabulary until it rolls off your tongue. When the time comes you are the voice to a 250 person audience that listens over the intercom. Once afraid to speak to even one, you are now speaking to the masses. And so, your fourth layer is created with swirls of inflection and tone - rich in color.

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We enter the church together, but your age group meets alone. We follow the directions to a huge room swarming with kids. It's loud, overwhelming, and full of energy that isn't ours. You walk ahead, find an empty place on a bench and sit down alone, gesturing me to leave. Alone but assured. You don't need my security, you've found it within yourself and made it your strong and solid layer. It fits you perfectly.

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I can't help your sisters with the things I usually do - like brushing their long tangled hair or squeezing their toothpaste. You come alongside them and smooth the knots as best you can. You pour the milk and zip zippers that are stuck. You are finding your way to compassion. It's not always easy - your help is not always welcome. But you are the big sister, and you are creating a layer with substance. You will grow into this one with time, but as it flows on top of the rest you see the way it belongs with the others.

~~~

There will be more, of this I am sure.

Hannah is becoming more complex - her layers taking shape, with new ones added every day.

Some I see created and others happen in secret quiet places, waiting to be discovered.

Underneath it all remains the old-fashioned looking paper doll -a simple steady base that holds and balances the new layers with beauty.