I recently wrote here about a book I’m reading called Chasing Slow by Erin Loechner. On a Sunday afternoon, for a brief moment, with the help of a twenty-two year old girl from Rwanda, I found it. I found that slow I’ve been chasing.
Rebeka Uwitonze is my coauthor for our book Her Own Two Feet. She lived with us for almost a year back in 2012-13 while she had surgeries to correct her club feet, and we tell her life story in our book. When it came out, it was nominated for an NAACP Image Award and she came to the US for her second time to attend the ceremony in Hollywood. We walked the red carpet and then she came to Texas and saw all her old friends and doctors and we got to do school visits together.
Last Monday, she came for her third US visit.
We coordinated with Africa New Life, the organization who first connected us to Rebeka. They do a lot of good things in Rwanda, including getting kids in school, and we’re so grateful for them. After meeting her in Portland and spending a few days there with our family, we headed home to Texas.
She met our three-year-old grandson, and we’ve played Uno and introduced her to scrabble, enjoyed her raucous laugh, witnessed her simple delight at what we might otherwise ignore, and just lived life together again. We’ve also been able to talk about her future on the eve of her senior year of high school.
It’s been wonderful to have her here again, busy, filled with family dinners and fun outings, but there came a moment when the family was no longer around. It was just Rebeka and me on a Sunday afternoon. I was looking for something for us to do, and I was starting to feel a bit desperate. On my own, I spend Sunday afternoons napping or reading or working on a story. Maybe I’ll ride the Peloton. But those are all solitary endeavors and I didn’t want to turn from Rebeka. I wanted to turn toward her.
I got a sudden inspiration and asked, “Do you want to do a puzzle?”
She said a simple, “Sure!”
Rebeka has always been pretty easygoing, a hallmark of slow. Things will get done when they get done. She can’t raise her arms, she swings them instead, and so she must find a new way to turn on the tap or get dressed. A slower workaround. Her feet are turned straight now but arthrogryposis has stiffened her joints so that she walks a little slower, and takes a little longer getting to the ground. I’ve never heard her complain. “It’s fine,” she often says, and I’m humbled.
To be clear, I don’t think she had any anxiety over a wide open afternoon with nothing on the agenda. I was the problem. Back to the puzzle. I opened up the cabinet where we keep them and her eyes lit on a forgotten craft project I’d been gifted several months ago. It was one of those “world in a book” 3-D assembly projects that required time, glue, and patience. This one would be a window into the world of The Secret Garden when complete. Rebeka was eager to try, and so I took a tip from her when she asked if we could do it, and said, “Sure!”
For the next couple hours, side by side, with Clay’s help (he’s way better at crafts than I am) we punched out teeny birds and flowers, glued, broke a few pieces, and glued again. I checked nothing off a to-do list. I burned no calories. I got no farther in my TBR pile. Turns out, it was awesome.
“This is hard work. But interesting,” Rebeka said as we puzzled over the diagram in the instruction manual and I struggled with spatial reasoning. She loved poking out the pieces, carefully holding them steady for a tiny drop of glue, and patiently working little cardboard prongs into holes.
And now I am proud to present to you, The Secret Garden, tended over several quiet, slow hours. It lights up when we pass by, tucked between some of my favorite middle grades from childhood and adulthood, built with one of my favorite people who teaches me that the slow way is rich, fertile ground.
About me: My name is Meredith Davis, and I’m an award winning writer of middle grade books, a former indie bookseller, founder of the Austin chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators and graduate of Vermont College of Fine Arts with an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults. Find teaching resources and author visit information on my website at www.meredithldavis.com. Mother to three, Nana to one and counting, I live with my husband and a crazy doodle in Austin, Texas.
Great post! Love your times with Rebeka, and that secret garden.
Um, THAT PUZZLE! And the shelf you've tucked it into! 😍😍