A Purer Source

I no longer read the news. I’ve actually been banned from it--a direct order from my therapist. I got into a bad habit of waking up, scrolling through, and stopping to read whatever tragic event transpired while I was sleeping. I’d feel my anxiety kick in, along with the overwhelming feeling of impending doom. As it turns out, this is not a healthy way to begin the day, while caring for 3 small children.

We are already living out the repercussions of destructive leadership, I don’t need to invite it into my mind every morning. Instead, I let the sounds of my daughters dictate the direction of our day, aiding only to nudge them (and myself!) back towards gratitude when we fall off course.

These mornings I’m barefoot in the kitchen sipping on cold coffee, throwing puffs towards my toddler, locating my 4-year-old’s toothbrush, and calling out bribes to my 6-year-old to stay sitting at the computer. In all the AM kerfuffle, I still get to hear the news, it just comes from a much purer source—in the form of a 1st grade Zoom meeting.

Teacher: “Can someone share one thing in their house that’s blue? I see so many friends sitting nice and quietly. “Suzy”, hit unmute and tell us what you found.”

Suzy: No sound, because she’s still muted.

Teacher: “Suzy, press unmute.”

Suzy: Still no sound.

Teacher: “Try again, we cannot hear you.”

Suzy: (Dad comes over to assist. Suzy is holding a blue object--doesn’t acknowledge it.) 

“My Dad told me not to share this because it’s private. My mom got out of the shower and wasn’t wearing clothes.”

Teacher: “You’re right, that is private. Tell me about your blue item in your hand.”

Suzy: “I take bathes not showers.”

Teacher: “Last chance to tell us about your blue item.”

Suzy: “I usually don’t wear clothes, unless I take a bath with my brother, then I wear my bathing suit.”

The meeting goes on like this for 45-minutes. 15, 6 and 7-year-olds and their gloriously innocent oversharing. I marvel that their logic always follows a zig-zagging path, eventually and inevitably tracing back towards losing a tooth, showing us their dog, or that one time they swam at a hotel pool.

I’m not sure what I was expecting to hear, as a former teacher, one of the main perks were these pure nuggets of delight. I think I worried all they would have to share are the struggles from the pandemic, since that has literally been every adult conversation since March. But children would rather tell you about that one-time Grandpa farted in the car, than complain about wearing a mask. 

How unbelievably refreshing. 

As parents, it’s our job to cleanse the parts of our reality that are too toxic for our children. Just as I needed to filter out the negative noise in the news, I should take a page out of Suzy’s book, and go back to the simple joys of bath time.   

We show them the tough parts they can handle.

And they show us the very nature of resilience. 

We carry the weight, even though it’s too heavy. 

And they keep reminding us to laugh.  

---

The Pieces They Will Carry

I can remember the 1989 Earthquake. We were in Half Moon Bay, a dreamy coastal town, visiting family friends. I was 4 and I felt the ground trembling under my feet as I watched books tumble to the ground. I know dishes broke, but I didn’t hear them. I can’t recall the look of fear on my mom’s face as she used her body to wrap my sister and me into the door frame. Afterwards we took a walk and saw a neighbor’s solarium, made entirely of glass, completely shattered. I remember his face as he swept up the pieces. It’s curious the pieces we carry with us from childhood. The parts we take and the parts we leave behind.

My friend and I have started running together, 6-feet apart. We shared back and forth events in our childhood that stood out, grappling with what our young children will remember from all the events of this year. She told me about the time when she was 10, learning the atomic bomb wasn’t just an idea, a man-made creation—but a weapon, that had been used. She ran into her room and ripped down a sign that read “Love Never Fails” and tore it into tiny pieces. Recounting to me, she laughed and called herself a “Drama Queen”. I disagree. This wasn’t dramatic, this was moment she fell off the cliff--the time the catcher in the rye couldn’t save her. Or rather, wasn’t meant to.

One of the many reasons we have yet to take a Disney vacation is because I don’t want to be poking my daughters in line for Pirates of the Caribbean saying, “Remember and appreciate this moment. Now give me a bite of your $22 churro”. Parenthood is a delicate balance between protection and exposure. Shelter under the doorway, but observe the destruction. Wear the masks, but limit talk of death. Explain about racism, but how to explain about Trump?

Yesterday I took a shot at normalcy and we went for frozen yogurt at our favorite place across from where we would participate in Farmers Market.

Absolutely nothing felt right.

No we can’t go inside.

No we can’t serve ourselves.

No we can’t play on the playground.

Don’t go near the other kids.

Farmer’s Market cannot exist like it once did.

When we were done, Charlotte found a baby praying mantis. We took it home in the Earth-destroying tiny plastic container their sprinkles had to come in. The girls watched its regal movements before setting it free, as I ducked away. I became so overwhelmed with sadness, I needed to find a space to cry alone over the breadcrumbs of a childhood I feared I was giving them. But this was from my own eyes, not theirs. I hope they recall sitting on the bench together as sisters, or the miraculously tiny insect. I know, however, I have about as much control over which memories they will take with them during this time, as I do over the atomic bomb itself.

My friend, a sensitive and compassionate woman, grew up to be a high school principal for a continuation high school that celebrates diverse non-traditional students. Today my oldest daughter told me, that even though she can’t see my mouth behind my mask, she knows I’m smiling because she can see it in my eyes. I can only hope that’s the piece she will carry.