We are proud that she is very much her own person. Ceileigh has been called an old soul by a number of teachers and friends of ours who have had a chance to know her. This means that although she is still quite young, she has the bearing, concentration, and self-confidence of someone much older. It reveals itself in making friends slowly, not following fashion, questioning doctrine, and seeking answers for herself, even at the risk of standing out or failing.
This carapace of self-assurance has taken a few dents thru her teen years, but is still largely intact. Because of this self-containment, she is slightly asocial, and so makes friends slowly (but fiercely) and is largely inattentive to fashion and popular culture, especially odd growing up a blue-eyed blonde in OC. (Strange genetics at work there…)
While this trait makes raising her a bit harder sometimes, it has its benefits - we never have to worry about her being badly influenced by her classmates. She walks her own path.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, here’s a shot of her kindergarten graduation. She wanted to attend the graduation but could not understand what the gowns were for, so she refused to wear hers. However, she demanded to be in the graduation picture:
We are also proud of her ability to observe the world in unusual ways.
Ceileigh "sees" things in unexpected ways during a routine walk down the street or in the undeveloped field across the way. It is uncanny in its artistic angle. Ceileigh takes close-up shots of blossoms, fur, grasses, sunlight, birds, roads, fences, spaces, and sky, in ways that make us marvel at her ability to notice the beauty in the most ordinary scenes. Ceileigh loves nature and the outdoors - it shows in her photographs.
As evidence, we cite the two websites for her photographic work:
Hmmm. Ceileigh has never been captured by pirates, attacked by polar bears, had to debate a visiting dictator. And we’ve been blessed with an unusually healthy, stable immediate and extended family, so family trauma has been fairly low.
When faced with an unusual situation, she usually evaluates it analytically and then reacts with a very Spock-like logic. She is the embodiment of calm. Unlike most people (much less young girls), she’s not afraid of snakes, spiders, and the usual zoology of fear. These creatures are interesting, not frightening; she investigates what she doesn’t understand, she doesn’t fear it.
Well-read: Ceileigh reads, more than voraciously, maybe spitting distance to pathologically. She polished off most of the Harry Potter bricks in single sittings as they came out (and then read them again later to savor them). A child whose idea of heaven is to be sent to her room for a few hours alone makes for slight changes in the dynamic of punishment. Her current job is a near-perfect match - helping at a children’s book store, a job which she was doing for free for access to the advance copies before she was hired for actual pay.
Analytical: The analytical self-possession shows up in many ways, some mentioned already. Flying solo across country from Nova Scotia the first time was no big deal. She had some questions as to the what-ifs, but after we discussed them, it was no longer worthwhile discussing. For a while, we did quite a lot of rock climbing and here again was the self-possession. Not braggadocio, but surity in her actions, knowing that she was in control of the situation; if a situation felt unstable or too dangerous, she would back down - that’s another of her qualitites - she does recognize her limits.
Calm: The calmness is just who she is. It’s not as if she doesn’t get excited; she does, but it’s almost always in the good way. She hasn’t thrown a tantrum since she was about 3 and we have been waiting for what we expected would be the payback explosion, but it looks like we’re safe. While friends' children have been going off like IEDs around us, Ceileigh has stayed unnervingly stable, raising eyebrows at her erstwhile playmates magnesium flares and mostly remaining friendly with them.
Fortunately or unfortunately, she is entirely self-motivated. She responds (or rather, responds not at all) to threats and / or entreaties to do things we suggest, when she does not want to do. Usually we’re able to come to an agreement with her through discussion and rational presentation of argument, but there have been a few times when such things did not make her change her position and she stuck with it. Some of these decisions have been ongoing.
An example. One of the few hobbies of mine that Celeigh has taken up is photography. Since the digital revolution, almost all photography has been converted to the interaction of photons with transistors rather than with grains of silver. However, when presented with the opportunity to take a photography class, she chose film photography rather than digital. I argued strongly for the digital class for a variety of what I thought were good (and indeed, irrefutable) arguments. However, in the end she chose (and has stayed with) film photography, even to the point of converting our washing machine room to a darkroom.
Getting her driver’s license was another lesson in self-motivation for us, but in the opposite direction. Most kids desperately want their drivers license at 16; not Ceileigh. She has a bike, loves to cycle, and saw no need to go thru what she considered an unpleasant experience to gain the so-called freedom that driving would give her. So she didn’t. Until we pressed the issue and argued for the identification aspect. Then she agreed to go through the process, and now has it. But she still doesn’t want to drive anywhere.
If I am allowed another example: when we gave her a laptop, we gave her the choice of what Operating System she wanted: Windows, MacOSX, or Linux. To my happy surprise, she chose Linux. It may have been that she knew she had a computer geek father who would fix any explosions, but after I installed it, she never asked me for help again, and it’s been 2 years. What other teenage girl (or boy) would choose to deal with Linux on a laptop when they could have a Mac? She is a strange, wonderful human being.
