A Brave Writer's Life in Brief

Lucky you—home with your kids, watching them change and grow before your eyes.

Lucky you—reading amazing adventures set in other times and places, all of it considered “on task” and “good use of your time.”

Lucky you—experimenting in the kitchen, using your baking equipment, setting a nice table, eating treats, and listening to happy voices tell jokes.

Lucky you—poetry, music, piano lessons, carpentry, quilting, dance, karate, Shakespeare, science experiments, field trips, hikes, skiing, cycling, picnics—weaving themselves through the ordinary days of laundry, sock folding, grocery shopping, window washing, and sometimes, paid work too.

Lucky you—markers and pens and pencils and highlighters and rulers and scissors and glue sticks and paints and canvases all inviting strokes and words and fantasies drawn from the imaginations of your little ones, shared with you in joy!

Lucky you—folding chairs and Capri Suns, colored jerseys, cheers for the team, and cuddles of comfort in loss after the weekly match.

Lucky you—fresh air and sunshine, a dog on a leash, a baby in a stroller, toddlers walking on tops of fences, bigger kids running ahead to see the horses or the fire hydrants or the play equipment or the dead snake in the street.

Lucky you—hard day, bad news, small pudgy arms wrapped around your neck, “Are you okay?”

Lucky you—sleeping in, or getting up early: your choice, your privilege. Or naps. Definitely naps.

Lucky you—they grow up, they help more, they fascinate you.

Lucky you—last year’s stress washed away by this year’s hope.

Lucky you—curriculum, libraries, zoos, museums, nature centers, theaters, parks, the neighbor’s trampoline.

Lucky you—your instincts are good, your heart is right, your commitment is fixed, your resolve to do better is endless.

Lucky you—learning who you are while discovering the heartbeats of your unique off-spring, creating memories that will comfort you when you are older and wiser and kinder.

Lucky you—when loss or tragedy strike, you face it with a crowd: your cluster of people who walk you through it, out of it, into the light again.

Lucky you—home educator, parent, adult, brave human being.

Lucky you. Seriously. Lucky you.

In the last post, we talked about listening. I ran across this quote in some of my old writing that was shared with me when I was a graduate student. It seemed apropos: “Listening is the willingness to risk my assumptions so that I am changed by what you share.”

That’s how you know you’ve listened:

What you heard changes something in you.

Listening might change your appreciation for the struggle or pain, it might change how you understand what happened, it might change how you see a situation or belief structure, it might cause you to make room for more perspectives than your own, it might cause you to cry or heave a sigh of relief.

Sometimes, however, the damage between two people is great—our kids are harsh in their assessment of us and we feel battered and bludgeoned by their (seemingly) unending invectives—we don’t feel we can listen any more, after giving it our best. I do understand self-protection in those moments and the need to take breaks.

Remember:

Things change.
Today is not the blueprint for tomorrow.
It is only today.

Risk your assumptions, be changed by what you hear, self-soothe, get support, create healthy boundaries, but make them permeable so that an adult child may return. Stay open to the possibility that there is more to know, understand, appreciate, and hear.

Listening doesn’t happen all in one go. It is a process over time, with ever increasing awareness of the depth of a context or circumstance or relationship.

Peace.

Header image by kikisdad (cc cropped, text added)