The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover will be yourself. – Alan Alda
Month: September 2012
A patchwork symphony of blues
One weekend this summer, Matt and I flew from Boston to Nantucket. I happen to love small planes, and flight in general. I had a new understanding of this latent passion of mine, incidentally, sitting at my grandfather’s funeral a couple of weeks ago. As we sang the Navy hymn, which we also sang at my maternal grandfather’s funeral, I realized that one of my grandfathers designed airplanes and one was a pilot. They were both sailors. I think I come by interest in the air and sea honestly.
For some reason, that late-August flight precipitated a spiritual moment. I gazed down from the small plane’s window and realized, with unexpected, gasp-of-breath power: This is my life.
I am inside my own life. This life: terrifying and technicolor, messy and mundane, this string of days full of noise and tears and startling, unexpected beauty.
Perhaps equally as importantly: I love it. Maybe more importantly. I love this life. With a deep sense of serenity that was both unfamiliar and enormously welcome sinking into my bones, I looked out the window of the 8-seater plane at Nantucket Sound and exhaled. Spread below me were the placid, gray-blue waters I’ve sailed so many times, dotted with dark green foliage-furred and yellow sand-edged slices of land. This is where I come from, a voice in my head said. Cape Cod. Falmouth. The Elizabeth Islands. Martha’s Vineyard. And, ahead, Nantucket.
Memories of each place rolled through me and I had a sensation of disbelief that the vivid film reel I’m watching is not visible to the outside observer. I exhaled and leaned my head back against the small seat, watching the patchwork symphony of blues beneath me. I let the feeling of ease spread through me and hoped that I could hold onto it. I think it was contentment.
Photo Wednesday 14
Bright blue Boston morning, last Friday.
Proof that Whit is my son
I have often joked that parenting is primarily the painful experience of watching your own worst traits animate in another person. That’s certainly something I do often with my children. Grace’s similiarities to me are immediately evident, but Whit’s are more buried. His little boy bravado and bluster hide a core of deep sensitivity. He can be sentimental and nostalgic, and is prone to emotional outbursts about things being over. There were several moments this summer when I was reminded with breathtaking clarity how much my son’s emotional terrain resembles my own, though we are wrapped in such different packaging (and how different those packages are. notably, his is adorable, and hilarious. mine, not so much.).
Three experiences in particular did this.
Arguably the scariest ride at Legoland is called “Knights Tournament,” and two riders are strapped into seats which are then thrown around, upside down, all around. There are 5 levels, and Grace and Whit are only tall enough to do 1 or 2. Last summer we tried 1. This summer we went for 2. The first time we went on it was at dusk on our first evening in the park (we have a routine of going back after an afternoon swimming break and early dinner). Whit disembarked and, taking my hand, announced, “Well, that was fun. The best part about it was that you got such a good look at the sky.”
Our second night home Whit was absolutely inconsolable at bedtime. He could not sleep. He was tearful and clingy. He told me he missed Legoland desperately, and was incredibly sad that something he’d so anticipated had come and gone. It’s just going too fast, Mummy, he said, murmuring into my neck as we lay on his bottom bunk in the dark. It’s hard to console someone when you yourself are overwhelmed with the precise emotions they are trying to deal with.
On the first Friday of school, I picked Grace and Whit up and took them to our local library to return some books and collect some others that I had ordered. I let them each choose a movie also. Two of the books in the stack the librarian handed to me were for Whit: Origami Yoda and The Way Things Work. As we walked out to the car I had a stack of books and the two movies on my arms. Whit held the door for me and then, trotting next to me to the car, announced, “Oh, Mummy, I love the library. Look at all this great stuff we got there!”
I am constantly amazed and often flummoxed by the ways that genetics work. Both of my children contain aspects of Matt, parts of me, and some mysterious element all their own; and through the particular alchemy of personhood they are each their own, unique, maddening, extraordinary person.
Six years
Saturday marked six years that I have been blogging in this space. It knocks the wind out of me to consider that when I started A Design So Vast, Grace was 3 and Whit was 1. I began this blog to record the small moments of my parenting life I worried I would forget. In retrospect (and only in retrospect) I realize that this was a concrete effort to engage in the right now of my life. It turns out to have been an effort that has changed my life enormously. I still struggle mightily with the effort to be here now, but I am much more present in my days than I was six years ago. I know that the practice of writing here is in large part responsible for that shift. On this screen, and in the many pages that writing here has inspired, my subject chose me. Immersing myself in that subject – my own ordinary life, replete with muck and also magic – has changed every single thing about me and how I live. I cannot express how grateful I am for that. And your generous thoughts, wise input, and probing questions are a huge part of that. So, thank you, all of you, for being an essential part of this huge change. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
For the last couple of years I have marked this anniversary by asking you for questions: is there anything you want to know, or to hear more about? Please, honestly, let me know … I love hearing what is on your mind.