What worries you my child?
Tin has always had a very serious pensive look and luckily as the months have come and gone with us together that furrowed brow is seldom visible anymore. But he can still give you a game face, usually in a situation that he is unfamiliar with. But the other day I took him to the hospital with me to see my aunt who had just had back surgery and he only had that look for a moment and then he started hamming it up and of course, getting the attention he has become used to.
I was writing to a friend about the power of just learning to be, which is something that only children really know how to do and for us adults, all cluttered with worries of mortgages and careers and world events outside of our control, our furrowed brow seems to just knit tighter and tighter and we forget how to just be. Well I’m not sure I ever knew to be honest. Although I have to believe that in my childhood I just ran around without the world on my shoulders much like Tin does now and I had nothing to worry about because my dad and mom and older brothers were pretty much always there looking out for me and also my aunts and my grandmothers who looked after me in the summers when my parents traveled alone.
We’re getting ready to go to Spain for our vacation, to enjoy the Cadiz coast and to try to unfurl from the tight knit brow and the hunched shoulders and the carpal tunnel from texting and mousing and the way all this stress seems to work its way right into our gut making our daily interactions only a shadow of what they could be.
Last night, Tin had his last bottle on the porch and I told him it was his last bottle and he seemed to savor every drop of it. He actually let me hold him like a baby and look into his eyes – something he hasn’t done in a while as he has become a wiggle worm. Then after he was in bed, T and I sat on the porch and looked at the light reflecting in the water from the houses across the bayou.
We were chatting about performing what Jews call mitzvahs – doing something nice for someone or an animal other than your own – and I said I felt that I have been wound so tight lately that I have gotten off the path of trying to do something for someone every day. The subject had come up from a book Tatjana was reading about teaching your children to save – children need three jars to put money in: one for immediate pleasure, one for long-term, and one for giving. T said earlier in the day she had stopped and let someone else in line ahead of her and the person was very grateful. But I couldn’t recall having done one nice thing for anyone lately and I felt bad about it.
I’ve been clouded with worry lately, almost unaware of my surroundings. Worries are clouds that should pass through our mind. If we are living right then we are taking time to meditate and to let these clouds appear and disappear. It’s when we are out of balance that the clouds get stuck, hover and obscure our vision, our way. And it’s not so healthy to wait till you have vacation to work on clearing the clouds out, it’s a practice that requires daily toil just like everything else that is rewarding in life. But it’s a practice that I forget to do.
What worries me to the point where I don’t have anything to give back to those around me who have less, who only require a smile sometimes from a stranger to set their day off on a better note? When I look at these worries in a different light they seem so puny and so fleeting. Looking at Tin go about his day, simply being, is lesson enough that I lately have strayed a long way from the simple path of living, of being.
The meaning of life is to live it. Not to just do it like Nike says. Nike is the Dow. Living is the Tao. There’s a big difference.