The First Thing that Doesn't Work

Being Isabel

You cannot become your daughter. You can't decide that you will become her damaged right lobe and you will direct her actions and schedule like a puppet. You cannot animate her spirit. She will not absorb what you want her to absorb and rise up out of disarray.

When she is not in line of sight she will be as she will be.

The practice of modeling the behavior you want her to emulate is illusionary. It teaches me but not her. It gives the seductive sense of control and betterment when none exists.

Writing her homework, coloring her pictures, cutting our her cards, doing her art projects to give her a vision of what can be done. These are bankrupt strategies that only send these messages:

1. I, Isabel, cannot do this on my own.
2. Someone will always do for me so I do not need to
3. My mother inhabits a different reality in which I am insufficient to participate so I am gone away.

s.