Yesterday was all about my newest granddaughter, Keira.  Today was about my first granddaughter, Skylar.  I love the fact that I have the privilege of passing on the wisdom of all the generations before me to these young bright minds.  We have the most interesting conversations!  Since we live some distance from each other, I spend time with her each summer.  We have a list of questions we go through when we reunite that brings us up to date on where we are now and share together how we’ve grown.

Here are three of my favorites from the list:

1)  What was the most interesting new person to come into your life this past year?

For Skylar, sometimes this has been a teacher, sometimes a new friend or neighbor.  But what she shared with me this year is that the most interesting person to come into her life over the past year was in fact someone who had been there before but she felt like she was getting to know all over again – her Mom.  She said that she discovered her Mom is a really interesting person and very talented!  What a delightful and precious thing to hear from your granddaughter about your daughter.  And how nice to know that at nearly 12, she is already discovering the person behind the role.

2)  What was the most interesting book you read this past year?

This one we love because we’re both avid readers.  There is usually a debate as we go over several possibilities and make final choices.  And some years, we simply cannot choose and we allow each other to name two.  But we often share our response to almost a dozen books in the process.  I marvel at how our minds work and how different people can read the same words and be affected in vastly different ways.  And where we are in our life stage can make such a difference.  One year she chose The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe (C.S. Lewis) and it brought back such great memories for me of when I read that as a young girl.  So I made it a point to read it again myself and was able to see it anew from the perspective of those young eyes of the past and the fresher (albeit older!) eyes of now.

3)  What was the most interesting thing that you learned this past year?

This is often the most difficult to answer because the idea of new knowledge is so vast.  But we are usually able to pinpoint it to some area of interest.  Skylar is particularly interested in animals and so in many cases it will be intriguing facts about the latest part of the animal kingdom that has caught her attention.  But sometimes it is something we learn about ourselves, too.  Other years it has been tied to travel.  My daughter’s family takes an RV trip every year to a national park and hike the trails.  They have climbed mountains and go down into craters.  Amazing places!  There are always some interesting facts that she picks up along the way on those journeys.  I love this one most because it means I can share what I have learned which re-enforces the idea of lifelong learners.

As we have gone through the questions this year I thought about the fact that this ritual I have with Skylar binds us together even beyond our familial ties because it keeps us engaged in each other’s lives.  It re-enforces the fact that we not only accept change and diversity in each other, we welcome it and celebrate it.  What a wonderful gift to give each other and something that we would all do well to incorporate into all of our relationships.

For our time today she chose to see the recently released documentary of Katy Perry’s 2011 tour.  I wasn’t sure what to expect but it turned out to be entertaining and insightful.  It gave us more things to talk about.  We both agreed on one thing – our favorite line of the film.  It is where Katy Perry is talking about the time in her career when everyone was trying to find a “spot” for her and figure out what other pop star she should emulate.  You should be the next “??” or the next “??”… She said that she knew that it wasn’t going to work because she wasn’t interested in being the next anyone.. she wanted to be the first Katy Perry.  Bravo!  I loved the lesson not only for Skylar but for me as well!

Brings to mind the words of Oscar Wilde:  “Be yourself.  Everyone else is already taken.”

I am the first and only me.  How amazing!