Brushes with Blackness: Best Friends and Bullies

Tags

Black Lives Matter, Blacks, bullies, childhood, Friends, personal, prejudice, race, racism, Whiteness, whites

Second in series in how Black lives and Black culture colored my Whiteness.

As a child I was completely color blind. I know today people would say that was unlikely. Or even problematic. White people declaring they are color blind is seen as a kind of whitewash, or cop-out, a way to refuse to deal with the problem of systemic racism. People of color born into racist societies do not have the luxury of being color blind.

But it is my recollection of my personal experience as a young child. Certainly I saw differences in skin color, but it meant no more to me than differences in body size, hair color, gender, age. I assigned no value to these things other than appreciating that there was difference. It was a natural part of life.

My first “brush with Blackness,” as I call it, happened in third grade. We were living in Omaha, Nebraska in the late 50’s, in an old haunted house that I write about in another series of blog posts.

On the school playground I befriended an older girl named Barbara in the 4th grade who happened to be Black. She was kind and fun and we shared a love of books. As she lived nearby, sometimes she walked home with me, and occasionally came to my house to play. Eventually she became my best friend. She was beautiful, tall and slim and had the loveliest smile. One day she invited me to her house to spend the night.

I only found out later what a ruckus that created between my mother and stepdad, who did not like the idea at all. But my mother insisted that I should be allowed to go. She met with Barbara’s mom, a nurse at the local hospital only a few blocks away. She was also a beautiful woman, fuller figured than her daughter, but with the same upswept hair and regal bearing, the same sweet smile and soft, warm voice.

It was my first sleepover and I was so excited. Barbara lived in a large home with several stories and a basement. Lots of her relatives lived there with her, including an uncle younger than she was, a fact that amazed and delighted me. How was such a thing possible? He was a fresh-faced boy with cute grin who liked to tease us. At dinner time we all sat around a huge dining room table eating the most delicious food I had ever tasted—barbequed pork ribs that melted off the bones. Everyone was friendly and laughed a lot, and made me feel a part of the family. My first sleep-over was a huge success.

But later that month I learned in a very personal way what racism was all about. In those days it was popular to wear dresses with full petticoats that made them flare out. While I loved them, they were also a nuisance. When I walked down the aisle of my classroom the dress would swish papers off desks if I wasn’t careful. So I got into the habit of holding the sides of my dress in when passing between desks or in crowded hallways. It seemed the polite thing to do so I wouldn’t be bothering anyone.

One day I was walking home from school on a narrow sidewalk. The girls in front of me were walking slower than I wanted to go, so I passed them by, politely pulling in my skirt as I did so. When I was in front of them, one of the girls began yelling at me and calling me names. Then she kicked me and made me fall. All I remember is being so hurt and angry and scared. I took off running as they laughed at me. When I got to the corner (my home was only a few houses away down the adjacent block) I turned around and yelled back at her the worst name I could think of, the one my mother had told me to never call anyone. I didn’t know what that word meant, but I felt she deserved it. I called her the N-word.

The next day I was called into the Principal’s office. My mother was there along with the girl who had kicked me and her 6th grade teacher. I thought we were there because she was in big trouble for being so mean to me. But instead I found out that I was in big trouble for calling her that horrible name. It seems she had thought I was holding my skirt in because I did not want it to touch her black body. And the fact that I had called her the N-word proved it. My mother explained that I did not know what that word meant, that I had nothing against Blacks. My best friend was Black.

Barbara and her mother came in to testify in my defense, and I was so grateful to see them there. Barbara told me later that the girl who kicked me was a bully who was always getting into trouble. She came from a bad home and her teacher was trying to help her.

I can’t remember what happened after that. Whether the girl and I had to apologize to each other or what the consequence was. Barbara and I remained friends. But I never got another sleepover at her house.

My colorblindness was shattered that day in the Principal’s office. Skin color became a thing that tainted all of us, me most of all. My whiteness set me apart from my Black friends. It made me suspect. It tainted me with the guilt of my forefathers and of my own prejudiced step-dad and other family members. It did not change my feelings for my Black friend or her kind family. But it changed my feelings for that Black girl who kicked me. I learned how my whiteness had marked me as a member of a race whose prejudice had scarred her, and how I had unwittingly contributed to that. I had a crash course in race relations, and from what I could see it was the White race, who had enslaved and oppressed others who were the tainted race, not the people who we had oppressed and continued to discriminate against.

Not long after that my stepdad was transferred to Vandenburg Airforce Base on the central coast of California. There were no Black children in the school I attended there, and very few in the small town I grew up in.

I feel for the girl who had kicked me, the hurt and outrage she must have felt as I passed her holding in my skirt, calling her that name. I feel for my friend and her mother, that they had been put into the position of defending me against another Black child, even a trouble-maker. I wonder what damage I did to race relations in that family who had welcomed me into their home with such loving-kindness, only to hear about what I had called another child, and feel betrayed.

The experience only deepened my empathy toward others and my commitment to fight for equality and justice for all people, whatever our race or ethnicity, gender or faith, economic status or sexual preference. But it also made me realize how easily we can misjudge each other, how a sense of injustice (hers and mine) can make us say or do hurtful things, things we wouldn’t if we knew better. How difficult it is to win trust and sustain it.

The worldwide protests against racial injustice, the insistence that Black Lives Matter, the kneeling of police officers with protesters, the public outrage against the senseless, violent deaths of Black men and women, make me hopeful that change is possible, that change is coming. None of us are free until all of us are free. That’s a lot of freedom yet to win. We’ve no time to lose.

Joy and Grief and Everything in Between

Tags

coping, Covid-19, Family, Parenting, personal

by Shelby McQuilkin

I don’t know if it has anything to do with Covid-19, all these mixed emotions that swell and rage and dissipate, often within a single day. But I think this lock-down acts like a incubator to warm and feed and grow them with no release valve.

It’s okay not to be okay, I’ve heard. That’s a relief.

First the joy: Singing and dancing with my granddaughter, listening to her laughter, feeling her fly-by hugs, snuggling while we read to each other. A trip to the beach to see the elephant seals, catching tadpoles in a creek.

Then the grief: Son missing. Haven’t heard from him in a month. So unlike him. Called the jail, the hospitals, the homeless shelters, (not the morgue). Called his friends. Only one responded. She went to look for him where he’d last hung out by the riverside. But he’s not there, she said. Mostly it’s been cleared out, the tent city where the homeless reside.

I think: Even if he called, how could I help him? What could I say beyond I love you, get help, get well, stay safe, be strong, don’t give up, fight to get your life back. And then a week would go by with no word from him, and another, and another, and then I’m back to where I am now. When does it end? And in a way that doesn’t tear me apart?

Then there’s the in-between, all that lies between joy and grief:  Can’t write, can’t paint, no time to myself. Homeschooling stretching out 4, 5, 6 hours a day. Constant worry about the virus, the isolation, the welfare of the nation, our democracy under Trump, my daughter and son-in-law trying to survive their lock-down, working from home. The court hearing for guardianship postponed again. My husband disengaged, rattling around the house trying to stay out of the way, trying to keep busy. Both of us eating too much. Tired all the time.

A major wedding anniversary comes and goes, un-celebrated. Unless home-delivered pizza and chocolate cake count.

A few good books and movies to distract us. Downton Abby movie last night, Ozark series last week.  The Last Kingdom starting soon. The Immortalists by Cloe Benjamin, The Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey, The Color of Lightning by Paulette Jiles. Escaping to other worlds.

Silly jokes and hilarious videos passed friend to friend by email.

Roses blooming, pool warming, frogs in full concert during the evening hours. Green hills, blue skies, wild flowers everywhere.

I’m blogging again. That’s something. First time in weeks.

So much to be grateful for midst the worry and grief. We have it better than most. How are you faring in this surreal landscape of Covid-19?

 

Home Schooling Again, & Who’s the Boss?

Tags

children, coronavirus, grandparenting, home schooling, Parenting, personal, Stay at home

I home-schooled my two children for six years when we were sailing around the world on La Gitana. And now, so many years later, I’m home-schooling my 7-year old granddaughter since schools closed because of Coronavirus.

My daughter was a breeze to home-school. My son, not so much. We tussled from time to time. His daughter is taking after him that way. The other day when she was defying everything I was asking her to do, and then making demands of her own, I was at my wit’s end. So we had the “Who’s the boss?” conversation.

Do you remember that conversation from back in the day? I clearly remember it with my own mom many times, and later with my son. I never cared much for it no matter which side of the fence I was sitting, and yet here I was again, repeating patterns of old. Thinking this will not end well. And wondering, do parents even have that conversation anymore? Is it politically correct? Should we be in negotiations rather than drawing lines in the sand?

Clearly I was having misgivings, but I plunged forward nevertheless. The truth is, my granddaughter probably takes after me as much after me as she does her dad. We are both extremely stubborn.

The conversation turned out about as well as I could hope. The most she would grant me is that “adults” are the bosses of their “children,” but her eyes slid away from me when she conceded it, and her mouth looked doubtful. Clearly she was not going to say that I was the boss of her. She was letting me know this mild concession was solely for the sake of preserving screentime, or anything else I might want want to withhold until I got what I wanted. Not because she really believed it.

Which was fine by me by then. A compromise, of sorts. A truce. I’d take it.

We were both ready to move on. And she did settle down and do her schoolwork.

But later that day she took me aside. She had been thinking about how things had gone sideways earlier that day and she had some suggestions about how we (meaning me) could handle this better next time.

Instead of having the whole “who’s the boss” discussion, I could give myself a time-out, go into my room and think about what was upsetting me so much. I could sit cross-legged on the floor and breath deeply (she demonstrated how). I could play relaxing music of ocean waves on my phone. Or better yet, she could give me a spa day and paint my toenails. Big hopeful grin.

“Now can we go look at photos of newborn kittens on your phone, Grandma?”

I marvel at this child every day.

My Wild Child, My Son, “Rider on the Storm”

Tags

Family, Heroes journey, heroin addiction, Homelessness, Parenting, personal, Survival

I wrote this tribute to my son seven years ago, shortly after the birth of my granddaughter.

Recently I posted a tribute to my daughter on her wedding day, and as I wrote it, I wondered about the tribute I might pay to my son, whom I love equally, but whose life journey, even while raised so similarly, led him down a very different path, often heartbreakingly so.

It always amazed me as my children were growing up how they had come to be, in some uncanny way, the embodiment of very different parts of my psyche.  My daughter was growing up to be the woman I had always wanted to be—beautiful, brave, strong, independent and self-confident.  While my son was turning out to be the kind of boy that I and so many young women were drawn too——wild and reckless, handsome and charming, sweet and funny, willful and stubborn—a born rebel, who cherished his freedom, testing limits and bending rules.  Living with him was like living on a roller-coaster ride, full of thrills and chills that never seemed to let up.

Almost from the day he was born he was a handful. I would ruefully tell other mothers how he entered the terrible twos when he was one and never grew out of it. At the tender age of two he ran away from home–twice.  Once to visit his grandma five blocks away.  Another to buy candy.  A policeman brought him home that day when he was trying to cross a busy street with a nickel in his pocket.  I installed locks on all the doors and gates after that.

Yet he was a loving child, a sweet child, popular with other kids and his teachers, even while he spent much of his early grade school days in the principal’s office. Not because he was a bully, but because he refused to be bullied, or see those he cared about bullied.

When he was 11, we moved on our boat La Gitana in Ventura Harbor.  He immediately took up surfing, and learned to row and sail a dinghy. He became an avid sport fisherman, making all his own lures and rigging his own poles.

When we finally did take off on our journey there was always a line in the water and he supplied most of the fish we dined on. He could free dive to depths of 20 or more feet to spear a grouper or capture a lobster.

He made friends easily with other sailors and fishermen who were impressed by his skill and knowledge.  He became a certified scuba diver at the age of twelve.  He was a true Pisces—at home in the ocean he loved.

Trying to home school him was a challenge, but once I enrolled him in a self-paced program where we mailed his work back to a teacher for grading and feedback, it went better.  Not that we didn’t have our moments.

By the time we reached Australia, he was 16-years-old and didn’t want to leave. In Australia at the time, many children that age left formal schooling to learn a trade.  Often they lived on their own, helped out by the government, or boarded with those who were teaching them a trade.  Chris was invited by a boat-builder to join his crew.  When it was time for us to leave Australia, he begged me to let him.  It was his dream to become the captain of a sports fishing boat, and this seemed like an opportunity for him to pursue that goal. I interceded on his behalf with his father, who, against his better judgment, allowed him to stay.

I’ll never forget the day we sailed away, leaving our son behind in Australia.  I felt like the worst of all mothers, like I was abandoning him.  And something in his eyes made me wonder if he was thinking the same thing.

At the same time, I felt like I was giving him an opportunity to be the man he wanted to be, to live the kind of life he wanted to live.

I had read books of young 16-year-old boys taking off on their own from Ireland to seek their fortunes in America, how difficult it had been for them, but how they had thrived.  It’s what I had hoped for him. I trusted that he had what it takes to make it on his own.  To this day, I don’t know if I made the right decision.

He spent 18 months on his own in Australia.  We exchanged letters and talked to each other as much as we were able.  Always I asked if he was ready to come back on the boat, or go home to stay with his grandparents.  Always he said no, he was fine.  But I never really knew.  I learned later that the old guy he had gone to work for was hospitalized and eventually died.  I heard tales about him drifting around working as a carny, and later for a Mafia-type family who owned a string of Italian restaurants.  He’s very tight-lipped about those days, and I do not press him.

He came home at age 18 around the same time we returned from our travels, and he was tall and handsome and had an Aussie accent.  He seemed happy and confident.   He spent some time with his grandfather, going mountain climbing and obtaining his GED.  Eventually he became a commercial diver, working on the oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.

Then he moved to New Orleans.  Two years later when he returned home to California he was a heroin addict.

That’s when the roller-coaster ride became a nightmare.  He couldn’t hold a job, couldn’t stay clean.  He spent years on the street, in and out of rehab, in and out of jail and prison, in and out of hospitals when he overdosed.  We took him in when we could, until we couldn’t anymore.  On more than one occasion I moved out with him, thinking hands-on mom-care would help.  It didn’t.

The worst part was when I didn’t know where he was.  I didn’t know if he was sleeping on a park bench or was rolled up on someone’s couch, or lying in a ditch somewhere.  When he was in jail, or even in the hospital, there was always hope.  He was safe, for now.  And maybe at last he’d hit bottom.  Maybe this time he would begin to turn his life around.

Yet even in the midst of all this he showed strength and resilience, street-wise resourcefulness, and a basic goodness that would inspire him to share the little he had with those who had less.

He saw himself as a “Rider on the Storm,” riding a long wild wave that would surely crash him on the rocks unless he could hold on tight and ride it out, and manage to turn it at just the right moment.  He couldn’t control it, and he couldn’t stop it, but he could perhaps outlast it. And he did.

He claims now I helped save his life. And sometimes I believe him.  My love for him was so strong, my prayers so constant, my will so fierce, nothing could make me let go, nothing could tear him away from me.   That’s how I saw it, willed it, demanded that it should be.  But I know better.  A mother’s love isn’t enough to keep a child safe.  Yet still, still, we would so believe.

Sometimes I think he’s the bravest person I’ve ever known.  No one else that I know could survive what he’s survived.  I know I wouldn’t.  Even his father, strong as he is, would not have survived that craziness.  Few do, I’m told.  Only fifty percent of heroin addicts survive their habit, and only half of those who do eventually lead drug-free lives.

I’m proud of him for being a fighter, a survivor, for not giving up, for having the stamina and courage to start over again and again and again—with nothing, no job, no money, no prospects.

I’m proud of him for winning the heart of the woman he now loves, for helping to bring their child into the world and raising her together, for caring for this child with such love and tenderness. For becoming the Father, the rule-maker rather than the rule-breaker, the Authority Figure in his young one’s life, someone she will look up to, and trust to care for her and keep her safe.

I think of those fairy tales and journeys heroes take, how they go into the dark, scary places of the world, do impossible deeds, overcome unimaginable challenges, fight off terrifying monsters, then save the princess and ride away with her on a white horse.  To some degree, in some measure, he’s done all that.

I see him as the warrior turned woodsman who has built a home on the edge of the forest.  All the scary things are still out there, but now he’s a seasoned fighter, and he has something other than himself to protect and keep safe.  He’s guarding hearth and home, this dragon-slayer, demon-hunter, who has lived with and among dragons and demons for so long.

His body art tells the story of his survival and his path to recovery.  Draped along his upper chest are the words “Riders on the Storm” to remind him where he’s been.  On his shoulders and across his back are nautical stars and a compass rose to guide him through the storm.

On his arm is an anchor with the word “Family” wrapped around it, to help keep him grounded and remind him of what’s he’s fighting for.  Beneath his heart are the infant footprints of a son he almost lost and is seeking to regain.  Soon to come, he tells me, are the fingerprints of his tiny daughter whose hold on his heart is so fierce.

Perhaps we all live at the edge of a dark forest, at the edge of the wild, with the dark scary things we fear forever yawning at our backs—addiction, disease, poverty, financial ruin, failure, loss of loved ones, war, famine, even enslavement for some.   Perhaps our life journey is to keep ourselves strong enough to survive the darkness, and bright enough to face the light and keep walking toward it.

I trust we all shall continue doing so.

NOTE – His journey is still ongoing. He’s out riding that storm again. Re-reading this post somehow comforts me. He’s strong, he’s resilient, he’s good and decent. He will survive.

Tapping into the Unconscious – The Art of Sohan Qadri

Tags

abstract art, art, artists, Consciousness, creativity, inspiration, personal, Sohan Qadri, spirituality, the creative process

When I first encountered one of Sohan Qadri’s paintings, I was plunged like a pebble into a still pool, radiating ripples of bliss.

An overstatement? I don’t think so.

The effect was profound, even if the words I use to capture it fail.

“A synthesis of emptiness and peace, radiating power,” is what Qadri is trying to express in his art, he writes.

”Art can have the same effect as meditation,” he tells us, “but only if we drop our constantly interpretating mind and learn to simply see . . . . This can happen if you grasp the painting at a subliminal level, let it filter in through your pores.”

With me at least, he succeeded.

His work is made from thick soft paper deeply saturated in brilliant colors, punctuated by ragged tears and rips, wavering furrows and trails of tiny pinpricks, like scattered drops of light–or bread crumbs — leading toward the vast unconscious.

“When I start on a canvas,” he explains, “first I empty my mind of all images. They dissolve into a primordial space. Only emptiness should communicate with the emptiness of the canvas.”

“People are always interested in dreams. I am interested in the question: ‘Who is the dreamer?’” Qadri writes. “I would like to know: ‘Who is the artist behind the artist?’”

When I entered his painting, I felt the presence of the artist behind the artist.

I think I was drawn to his work because when I’m writing, in some way, I am always trying to do that as well, tap into the writer behind the writer.

At my best writing, I feel as if it’s not “me” writing, but something writing through me, beyond me.

As writers and artists, I think we are seeking to move beyond ourselves, dip our pens and brushes into the deep storehouse of the unconscious, the rich field of the imagination, where colors and forms and images and emotions flow.

We tap into it and let it flow out through us, filtered by our experiences and sensibilities, onto paper or canvas.

Readers and art lovers are also seeking to move beyond themselves, to be swept away into other worlds–magical realms or gripping tales created by words, or rich fields of form and color beyond conceptual thought.

The best writing, the best art, for me is when we feel the presence of the creator behind the creator, and recognize, if only for a moment, the face of our larger selves.

This post was first published in a slightly different format in June 2013.

 

“I’m Praying for You, To Die”

Tags

darkness, family conflict, grandparenting, hate, personal, Prayer

Nocturne in Black and  Gold by James McNeill Whistler

I get this message about once a week from my granddaughter’s mother. It goes into great detail about the pain she hopes I will suffer.

As some of you may know, I am trying to gain permanent guardianship of her daughter after she was taken away from her mother by Child Welfare Services. This is not the first time her daughter has been put into my care by the courts. I raised her from age 2 1/2 years to four years.

This message I get is by no means the least hostile or vicious. It’s just I can’t repeat in a public forum the vile things she says on a regular basis about me and my son, my husband, and even her own mother, who all support me in this effort. Things that would make a sailor blush.

Most of the time I can blow it off. I know it’s the ramblings of an angry, unstable mind.

But every time I sit down and try to write a new blog post, these words come to mind and won’t go away. So maybe I just need to get it out there so I can move on.

I like to blog about what’s forefront in my mind, what excites and inspires me, and yes, what disturbs and troubles me. I guess I just can’t wrap my mind around the kind of darkness that would say such things. It’s staggering to me. If nothing else it’s inspired my own prayers to go much deeper than ever before.

Despite this spiteful barrage of texts and emails I receive from her, there’s still much that inspires me each and every day of my life, not least this precious child who lives with me.

And I’m painting again, at last. A new watercolor class. Soon I’ll be back to my novel. In the meantime, I may re-post things I wrote about years ago that still inspire me.

Please bear with me until I get my groove back.

And say a prayer for this woman who lives in such darkness, who wants to blame me for the loss of her child instead of looking into the mirror. I used to feel deeply her pain, empathize with her as a mother, but she’s worn me out with her hate. Now I am ever more determined that this child should never go back into a home where such vileness lives.

 

To Crave & To Have: A Thing & Its Shadow

Tags

desire, loss, Marilynne Robinson, Metaphysics, personal, Philosophy, quote

Photo by Edward Steichen

To crave and to have are as like as a thing and its shadow. For when does a berry break upon the tongue as sweetly as when one longs to taste it, and when is the taste refracted into so many hues and savors of ripeness and earth, and when do our senses know any thing so utterly as when we lack it? And here again is a foreshadowing–the world will be made whole. For to wish for a hand on one’s hair is all but to feel it. So whatever we may lose, very craving gives it back to us again. — Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1980)

I wonder, is this true?

Certainly, sometimes the thing we’ve craved, once held in hand, does not live up to what was rounded out in exquisite detail when beheld in mind. Nor does the thing in hand last quite as long, if the thing we crave is not an object we can possess.

But is the thing in hand a mere shadow of the thing we craved for?

Is the matter-object we hold for but a moment in our hand less substantial than the ideal we crave and can bring to mind at moment’s notice and hold onto forever?

Sometimes I like to think so. I like to think those we’ve lost that are dear are as close as our thoughts of them fleshed out by memory and imagination. By a pure, keenly-honed desire to have and hold. Desire as sharp and hot as a welder’s flame.

I like to think that all I love and long for–that deeply felt-sense of them–is never lost. It’s shadow-substance may come and go and disappear as things do in a world of constant change. But its essence, the thing-in-itself that ever was, remains.

Brighter, clearer, than when held in hand.

Sweeter, purer than before.

The clean, keen edge of it never lost. Never wavering.

From the Tailwinds of 2019, Hope Lost & Its Glimmer

Tags

2020, Hope, life, new year, personal

Edward Robert Hughes (1851-1914), Night with her Train of Stars (1912)

I ended a blog post at the tail end of 2018 with this wish list for 2019:

A Look Ahead – What I Want Most

A happy ending for my son.

A happy ending for my novel.

More novel-writing, more painting, more blogging.

More artful living.

More Love. Lots and lots of love, for all of us.

My wish list for 2020 is much the same. For one year, it appears, was not long enough to fulfill these wishes.

The happy ending I’d hoped for my son seems less likely now than ever. His addiction has once again robbed him of everything he built during four years of sobriety.

The happy ending for my novel is still on hold. We took it off the market while I sent it to a professional editor. And the editing I had begun was postponed when my granddaughter came to live with me.

Instead of more writing, painting, and blogging in 2019, there was less and less. I did not blog or paint or write at all last month.

More artful living? More love for all of us?

Not so much last year.

The one gift 2019 gave me (which is huge and fills my heart!) is hope for my granddaughter when she came to live with me. Hope that she will remain in my care–happy and safe, healthy and strong, responsibly cared for and dearly cherished as she grows into a young woman.

May this blog post be the beginning of a bright new year for all of us.

 

From Pete the Cat: It’s All Good

Tags

books, children, grandparenting, inspiration, Judy Blume, Junie B Jones, personal, Pete the Cat, Reading

One of the joys of grandparenting is revisiting stories I loves to read my own children and sharing them with theirs. What fun it was to read to my granddaughter some of her father’s favorite books, Judy Blume’s Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, and Superfudge. Equally fun is discovering new favorites all her own, like the audibles we’re listening to of Junie B. Jones series narrated in that delightfully scratchy and droll voice of Lana Quintal as Junie B. rebels against riding the stupid smelly yellow school bus, and gets back at that meany boy Jim who invited everyone in room 9 to his birthday party but her.

A new recent favorite is the Pete the Cat series, and my personal favorite I Love My White Shoes. This groovy blue cat with the yellow eyes and long skinny legs has a new pair of white hightops that he loves, loves, loves! So much so that as he strolls along he sings this song: ” I love my white shoes! I love my white shoes! I love my white shoes.”

But then, “Oh no!” he steps into a huge pile of strawberries, turning his white shoes red. What does Pete do? Does he cry? “Goodness, no!” He just keeps strolling along singing his song, “I love my red shoes! I love my red shoes! I love my red shoes!”

And when through a series of accidents his shoes turn blue, then brown, then wet and white again, what does he do? He just keeps strolling along, singing his song, which changes according to the circumstances: “I love my blue shoes! . . . I love my brown shoes . . . . I love my wet shoes . . .!”

The illustrations are so vivid and cheerful, the cool cat’s insouciant optimism so infectious, with the repetitious sing-songy verses undercut by unexpected riffs from the past (Everything is Cool! Groovy! Rock N’ Roll!), we don’t even mind when, at the end, the story points to itself and sets out the “moral” in black and white on the page:

“The moral of Pete’s story is

No matter what you step in

Keep walking along and

Singing your song . . .

[turn page]

because it’s all good.”

So simple. So wise. And for all its triteness, so encouraging to this grandma and her little granddaughter, each of us in the throes of transition, our lives turned upside-down since she’s come to live with me, not knowing what will come next as I petition for permanent guardianship,  the decision so completely out of our hands.  

All we can do and must do is just keep strolling along, singing our songs, reading our books, enjoying our sweet time together in the here and now, come what may, regardless the shifting landscapes and incidences that continue to color our lives.

Knowing, like that great, wise, groovy Peter the Cat says: It’s all good.

[NOTE TO READER: While the Junie B series is new to me and my granddaughter, it’s been around for a long time, since 1995! Pete the Cat is not as young as he is cool either, having debuted in 2010. If you younger parents and grandparents know of newer book series you think my sweetie might like, please let me know. She’s an “old soul” first grader.]

 

 

Life’s Sweet Longing for Itself

Tags

children, Family, grandparenting, inspiration, Kahlil Gibran, Parenting, personal, Philosophy, spirituality, The Prophet

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not from you.

I first read these words from Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet when still in high school, a child myself, although I did not see myself that way. His words moved me then, even as they do now, so many years later, when I am raising a granddaughter.

Then I truly was “life” in its earliest stages “longing” for the life that was to be, that stretched out before me in what seemed an endless and exciting unknown potentiality.

I didn’t want to be hemmed in by the hopes and expectations of my parents, nor by their fears and warnings. I didn’t want to “learn from their mistakes,” as they cautioned me. I wanted to live my life as an adventure, learning from my own mistakes, not theirs. My life was my own and no one else’s. I wanted to risk all, moving at my own direction, and good or bad, I alone would take responsibility for the life I chose. Such were my longings then.

So I found Gibran’s  parenting advice immensely inspiring,  both for myself as I was moving beyond my parents into adulthood, and also for the kind of parent I wanted to be to my own children.

He goes on to say:

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Now, as the mother of a grown son and the guardian of his child, The Prophet’s words still move me . . . and admonish me.

How I wish now my son had heeded my warnings, and that they had been louder and clearer. How I  wish he had chosen paths more safe and sane, had lived up to all the potential I saw in him then and see still.

But those are my fears, my regrets, not his. I must loose him and let him go, and see the direction in which he flew as his own choice. It was never mine to make or change or regret. I had longed when young to make and learn from my  own mistakes, and so must he. But that learning is his alone to make or forsake in his own good time.

As for his child, my little granddaughter, she too is an arrow who will fly beyond my bending, beyond my ability to see or guide her life’s flight. Will my warnings to her be louder and clearer? No doubt. Will she heed them, or long to learn from her own mistakes, as I had, as her father must? We shall see.

She, as her father, is in the Archer’s hand. And I must trust, trust, trust that each will reach that mark upon the path of the infinite toward which the Archer aims with gladness. They are, after all, Life’s sweet longing for itself.

As am I.