Most mornings he resembles a Muppet. A geyser of hair at the back of his neck, sleep running in snail trails down his pillow-pocked cheek, a soft cotton T-shirt bunched up around his bellybutton. I walk to meet him, usually in my own version of sleep-dilapidation, and do a brief assessment: is it gonna be a good day? Sometimes he hugs me around the waist, other times he smacks me in the kneecaps. In any case, the Muppet waddles past me down the stairs and begins his morning sonata:
"I wan ceeweal."
There are no exceptions to this rule. In life as in death, and in Benji, we come out the way we went in: wanting cereal. Maybe grumpy, maybe smiling, but with surprisingly little ailment that a fresh bowl of Rice Chex can't cure.
2. The great thing about toddlers is, like dogs, they don't hold a grudge. If Benji and I have a rough morning, or if GOD FORBID we run out of cereal, I can guarantee he will have forgotten about it by the time I pick him up from preschool. If you throw a dog out on the porch because she has eaten your socks, or if you lose your temper with a 2-year-old because--guess what?--he tried to eat your socks, there is usually a twenty-minute turnaround before he is ready to love you all over again. When I walk to meet Benji at 3:30, the baby strapped to my chest and a string cheese sticking out of my shorts pocket, the morning's events are irrelevant. I search the porch of half-pints for the one face that knows me back, for those Bambi eyes and curly head, until I find it; and when he runs out to greet me--little hands outstretched--and pours himself into my hug, it doesn't matter what happened at breakfast. Grievance is a myth. We are always, always forgiven.
3. I wonder what Jimmy Choo was like as a child. Did he try on his mother's slippers, picking at the bits of fabric and lace until he knew--yes, I want to spend my life's work making horrendously beautiful women's shoes?
If so, he ain't got nothing on Benji.
Shoes are his favorite, but fashion is his thing: and as for many, the source of great joy and deep frustration. We've all had those mornings when you're late for school and nothing looks good. You try on seven dresses, only to leave the house in the same jeans and t-shirt that you put on when you woke up. For Benji, this is compounded with the toddler mantra of DO IT MYSELF. It doesn't matter if his buttons resemble a Rubik's cube, or if he feels the need to wear a woolen sweater when it's ninety degrees outside: no matter what he chooses--and believe me, he will choose it--he insists on putting on himself. Getting dressed can take anywhere from five minutes to two hours; but like most things with a child, you don't get to hit Scene Selection. You wait it out.
One morning at the beginning of our time together, we were on our way to catch the bus. Benji, feeling the need to change his shoes three times, sat on the floor picking at the velcro. Benji, we have to leave.
"NO!"
Benji, we have to go. We're going to be late.
"NO!"
Benji, we seriously need to leave... I'm sorry, but I am going to help you get dressed.
"NO!"
At which point he tore off his shoes, the rest of his clothing, and tried to bite my arm. With the baby in one hand and our overstuffed diaper bag in the other, I came to a crossroads: get the child dressed and out the door through sheer force, or abandon the plan altogether. Instead, I plopped down on the floor and began to bawl.
Boy, did that ever scare him.
"Jenna okay? Jenna okay? Jenna crying."
Yes, Benji, I'm crying.
"Jenna crying."
Yes, Benji.
We sat there for a long time, curled into each other's arms, discussing the fact that everyone cries. He played with his toes, looking up at me ever so often just to check if I had started up again; the sheer novelty of it, if nothing else, had him transfixed. I looked down and him and was wracked with guilt. We all need our mommies sometimes, Benji, and right now my mommy needs me. And I'm scared.
"Jenna crying."
No, not anymore.
He looked at me and smiled. We got up hand in hand, and started to pick at the tornado of clothes on the floor; I grabbed his pants and t-shirt, and in one final valiant attempt, began to squeeze it over his head--
"DO IT MYSEEEEELLF!"
Of course.
But one way or another, eventually, he did.
4. The gift of letting a toddler 'do it himself,' unless you're trying to get somewhere in a hurry, is witnessing the genuine rapture of accomplishment. Doesn't matter if he pees in the toilet, drinks water out of a cup, walks down the stairs without falling, or pours a decapitated Barbie doll a cup of imaginary tea (all true): completing an action, any action, puts him on top of the world. Our walks to and from preschool are peppered with choruses of "I DIIIDDDD IITTTTT!"…which throws some perspective on how the rest of us approach household tasks. Today, while making toaster waffles, I gave it a try. The handle stayed down on the first attempt, and the waffles emerged in the most goldeny-brown way.
"I did it!!!!!"
The cats looked up at me, judging. But I was far too busy eating waffles to notice.
5. No matter the owie, no matter how big, a kiss will make it better.
6. At some point this summer, I surrendered basic hygiene. Last weekend at Beloved, I curled up inside a hoodie of my own stench--caked to perfection, of course, with the sweat of dozens of other dancers and a thin layer of Oregon mud--to sleep in the middle of the woods. There were showers available, but for $8 a pop... and at this point, I'm more than accustomed to disgust.
Before Benji enrolled in preschool, it was a miracle if I got to brush my teeth in the morning; let alone shower, or do something to my hair to make it resemble anything other than roadkill. Now that he's gone in the mornings, I may get the chance to hop in the shower--but I never expect the clean to last longer than an hour or two. With babies, spitup happens. Often more than once in the space of five minutes. Creamed carrots happen, close-range urinations happen, and applesauce explosions happen... usually when you are on your way out the door. I've given up on the idea of cleanliness because other things matter more. One afternoon as I lay comatose on my bed, staring at the ceiling and contemplating which future-building career nonsense I wanted to procrastinate on first, Benji did a nosedive onto my stomach.
OOF.
He hauled himself onto my torso, planting one knee on either side, and grinned the biggest grin that has ever been grinned.
"Jenna, I LOVE you."
And happiness swam through my body like electricity. There is no feeling like it. None.
Benji, I love you so much. You're my best boy.
At which point Benji's smile cracked open, his eyes lit up, and he delivered a stream of saliva directly into my open mouth. I leapt up, running to the bathroom in a futile attempt at disinfection; knowing all the while that if I had to choose between a clean mouth and hearing someone say he loves me--his crinkly eyes revealing that he really, truly, loves me--I'd choose the latter. Every time.
7. Have you ever heard "The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round? How about the lesser-known verses, like the mommies on the bus (shh shh shh) and the money on the bus (clink clink clink) and the horn on the bus (beep beep beep)? Have you ever heard it more than once in the same day? How about twenty-seven times?
I have.
8. If I've learned anything from my proximity to Montessori, it's that two-year-olds hate to be uprooted. They get off on their sense of order; the pink spoon goes in the pink spoon spot, we wash our hands after we use the potty, we hold hands when we cross the street. So what happens when you uproot a toddler not one, not two, but three times over the course of one summer?
In a word: poop. When the world as they know it appears to be crashing down, when they can't get a grip on where or when they are supposed to sleep, some kids take to exercising autonomy over the one thing they can control--their bowels. And by some kids, I mean Benji.
All in all, he's done incredibly well. We went from a madhouse in the Southeast to a family den in Alberta to our current home in Sellwood, and of all that backing and forthing, there was only one incident where he felt the need to smear feces on the shower curtain. What started out as sheer disgust from me, though, has morphed into sympathy; what would I do, for example, if I were in his miniature shoes? What did I do when I was just a little bit older than he was, packing up my blue suitcase twice a week to volley back and forth between my parents?
I remember sitting in the counselor's office at Roosevelt Elementary, mandatory penance for any kid dealing with Divorce. Divorce. It had such a dull clang to it, even then; but all I really remember feeling was annoyance at the counselor's inability to anticipate my game preference. I mean, Checkers? Really? I was five. She could have at least invested in some Disney gear. But instead, we bookended each other once a week--the counselor and I--around a checkerboard and a state-funded program, neither one adequately stacked to handle what might unfold between us.
Since then, I've continued to uproot. The whole time I was traveling, people asked me if I missed my own bed; and sure, I did. I missed the idea. But the truth is, I haven't had the feeling of my 'own bed,' or the comfort it supposedly contains, for many years. And even then, I had a suspicion that home was something you create. It's not a mattress.
So. One sticky July evening, we took Benji out for ice cream. After waiting in line for nearly an hour, we settled at a table near the corner--and about five minutes in, his mom pressed too hard on the side of her cone, and it shattered. It wasn't even Benji's ice cream that got sacrificed; but somehow, in his brain, that didn't matter. Something about seeing the cone explode into dozens of sugary pieces, no longer the shape it arrived in, set off an alarm in his head. Fat tears rolled down his face, and as we cooed over his screaming--half-laughing, half-crying at the fact that he was devastated over dessert--I began to think. We all crave a sense of order. For me, it doesn't mean staying in one place; if anything, it's irregularity that I seek. But it's still a pattern. I can drink my chai in a different kitchen every two weeks, subconsciously marveling at my ability to adapt to each teapot's particularities, but you can be damn sure that it's tea I'll be drinking.
9. Shameless perk of hanging out with a toddler: access to your own personal parrot. In one day, I can get Benji to tell his father that he is a "Classy Gentleman," can ask him to say "HELLOOOOO!" to just about anyone, including the representative at Virgin America, and can trick him by rattling off tongue-twisters that he will feel the need to repeat: like Perplexing. Or Transylvania. Or Crisps.
"Pedrprexeen. Dansyrvendah. Kips."
I solemnly swear to use my powers for good and not evil. But. Let's just say... the next time the bus driver sighs audibly when I struggle to collapse the un-collapsable stroller, he's got another thing coming.
"HELLOOOO, baaathead."
10. Mid-July, I received a phone call that pulled the rug out from beneath me. I remember exactly where I was standing; pad thai sizzling on the stovetop, the exact weight of the pink dress that hung loosely from my shoulders. I remember feeling like my brain had been sunburnt; but not long afterward, realizing the control center had switched to Numb. I ate the pad thai, but my throat closed around it.
The worst part, perhaps, about caring for an addict is knowing you are powerless. Nothing you can say or do will alleviate the fact that they are at war with themselves. After I received that first phone call, I received others--all variations on a theme of hopelessness. It's a defense mechanism. It's the only way I know to move forward with my own life.
Meanwhile, I was listening to toddler Pandora and trying to perfect the ratio of almond butter to raspberry jelly. The Numbness did my laundry, went jogging, and even spent time with friends and family; it inhabited a functioning body, kept it functioning, but did nothing to bring light into the places that hopelessness lodged.
Benji did that. His unwavering hope, his unflinching belief that every day is the BEST DAY EVER because he gets to eat CEREAL, snapped me into a place of reckless optimism. Like animals, toddlers can smell when you need extra love... and for the week that I needed him most, he enveloped me in it without asking for anything in return. (Except maybe an almond butter and jelly sandwich. Or two. Or three.)
11. Forget what you've heard about the Terrible Twos. Nothing you've ever seen on television, no half-guilty glance at that mom in the supermarket dragging her kid by the snap on his overalls, could possibly sum up what it is actually like to deal with a toddler during peak tantrum season; that is, unless you've lived with one.
Benji, despite all his warmth and goodness, is capable of taking his voice to this guttural place--a scream so potent that you're left wondering if it's even human--that renders me inert. I freeze like a stunned chicken. Funnily enough, it's almost never rooted in anything substantial; when he actually faceplants on the sidewalk, more often than not, he shakes it off and keeps running. Brushing teeth, however, can be an all-out war.
"I WANNA BRUSH MY TEEEEEEETH!!!!!!!"
Benji, when you throw your toothbrush in the toilet, you don't get to brush your teeth.
"WANNA BRUUUSHH TEEEEEEEEEEETH."
Benji, I don't like it when you punch me in the neck.
And so it goes. This is usually the point that the baby starts to cry, inspired by the general cacophony and not one to be outdone by flying toothbrushes. Sometimes, I can smell the tantrum coming a mile away; like when we're about to cross the street and Benji gives me this look, a look that quite plainly says, "I am going to do anything and everything in my power to scare the living bejeezus out of you." At this point, he tears across the street in a flash of sandals and hair, and I am forced to pin him to the sidewalk and wrestle him into the stroller, where he proceeds to scream himself into oblivion. I usually walk around the block a few times, smiling eerily at anyone who passes by, pretending that I--like they--have no idea how this demon snuck into my stroller.
When he's done howling, however, Benji brings his hands up to his face and begins his mantra. "Takea deeep breat, caaaam down. Takea deeep breat, caaam down." Sometimes he'll do this for five minutes before needing a response.
That's right, Benji. Deep breaths.
"Big hug, Jenna."
Big hug, Benji.
I thought about it once, and realized something funny. If he's at his Terrible Twos--throwing fits in grocery stores because he's tired, or they've moved the yogurt-covered raisins, or he doesn't know what's coming next--where does that place me? I'm twenty-two years old. That's TWICE the two, 2x the terrible, 2x the need to throw tantrums at bath time. I proposed this idea to Benji once, watching dazedly as he constructed a tower of legos. What do you think about that, Benji?
"Peanutbuddur petzels."
So we're really not that different, him and I. All we ever want, all we're ever truly screaming for, are peanut butter pretzels and a long nap.
12. When you're a child, there's this delicious feeling of riding in the back of a vehicle and losing all sense of time and space. It doesn't matter where you are, or where you're going; all you know is you're getting there, and someone else is making sure you do. You can close your eyes, the sounds of the street ebbing as your consciousness does. There's no resistance in this. No wondering whether you should take out your contacts before you fall asleep, no fretting over whether you've shut down your computer or fed your fish or finished the shit that stands between you and a good night's sleep.
Benji, you've inspired me to feel joy down to my skinny skin skin. When we went to Sauvie Island, watching you run into the water--your feet galloping over one another, your skin glowing under tiny droplets of sun and sea--I felt something awaken in me, like wonder. I'm not sure I knew what that meant until now.
Or rather I did, but I had forgotten. Forgotten until I watched you eat hummus by the fistful, bits of cracker stuck in your hair, blackberries staining your cheeks and your chin. Forgotten until you ran into my lap today, wrapping your arms around my neck and pressing your nose to mine; giving me that look that says you'll trust me forever, your accordion ribcage crumpling and expanding like it's just learning how to breathe.
When I think of leaving you, I want to collapse.
13. To walk down the street with a toddler is to know that you might end up staring at the same flower for twenty minutes, and often do.
14. Sometimes, magic happens. The more enlightened among us might see perfect timing: as things being set into motion long before they actually come to fruition, as souls making an agreement to meet when they're ready. The rest of us just feel damn lucky.
A little less than 2 years ago, I met Shakey Graves at Pitzer College. I remember walking up after his show, stupidly confident as only someone in a costume rental can be, and inviting him to a party at the Co-op. A little less than 2 weeks ago, I saw him again; this time, at a bluegrass festival. Still stupidly confident, but minus the costume, I approached. He looked at me quizzically.
"Did you by any chance invite me to a Co-op?"
As a matter of fact, I did.
Suddenly, his brows split; I did my best to appear nonchalant, but ended up tying my purse string in a quadruple knot just to have something to do with my hands. He cleared his throat. "Do you have any idea how much I thought about that night? Here's how I feel about missing that party: re-GRET. Re-GREEEEEET."
That was about the time that my legs stopped working.
But they must have started working eventually, because I remember two-stepping beneath the trees behind the Pump House. My dress bunched up around my ankles, and I sank into the realization that anything can happen. Anyone can drink a box of red wine, stare down the throat of possibility, and stomp over a mat of muddy hay; anything that can occur between two human beings having a real-live connection, will. And does. He scratched against my cheek. This is why I invited you to the Co-op party, I told him, and laughed. And he buried me into his arms.
Running away from his car that night, the light peaking over the stage in the distance, I drank in the things that only I'll know. Before I settled into sleep, however, I played the evening's reel in my head; by morning, it'd already be settled into half-dream, and I wanted to remember. If I didn't have time to anticipate it, did it really happen? If a tree falls in the forest...
The funny thing about a little bit is, you always want a little bit more. When Benji has tortilla chips, if you let him have a few before dinner, he'll boycott his burrito altogether and cling to the idea of chips: CHIPS. Suddenly he wants to eat all of them, and won't be able to think of anything else until he does. For me, it wasn't enough to kiss the sunrise with a beautiful stranger; I wanted him to be inside my head, for him to know that I know that he knows that feeling his fingers in mine was a point of no return. And yet... when I ran back into the woods that night, his song at my back, I found magic in the mystery. There is love in what is left beautifully unfinished, because that in itself can feel whole.
And that is what separates me from Benji. At times when I feel like we both just want to eat a quesadilla and listen to Raffi, I remember this: holding back, leaving room for anticipation, is something I've earned. It's something I've grown into, like my grown-up clothes.
The next day, I got a message.
"You are a real live Disney princess."
And that was enough. According to Benji, that's the best compliment there is; and lest we forget, his is the only opinion that matters.
15. The roof of my mouth has already healed from where I burned it on my pizza. I run my tongue over its slickness and understand: Our hearts have the ability to mend themselves. Isn't amazing how things fade?
Some things, however, stay with us. When I pitch my brain forward to years down the road, picturing Benji in his adult life--running, perhaps, through his own dawn-lit forest--I hope he retains what his childhood has taught me. When he sprints toward the swing set, or into my arms at the end of the school day; when he collapses into bed, blanket tucked under his arm, sleep already saturating the pillow... he has no regrets. None. He surges through life like a rocket, knowing that each day is NEW, and better than the last--how could it not be? Sure, today we got to watch The Elephant Show... but tomorrow, we'll probably do it again. And again. And again.
A beautiful night at a music festival is not the pinnacle of my young life. A highlight, sure--but not the pinnacle. This is the case in babies and in bluegrass, and is the lesson I leave the summer with: that life, if we choose to see it as so, is really only ever getting better all the time. There's always a bigger playground, better shoes, a later bedtime, more joy than we thought we were capable of feeling. Benji, he wants to grow up. He's in a hurry to get to those shoes.
As for me, I'm learning to be content where I am: sitting in the dining room in a house I don't own, cup of tea at my elbow, a baby asleep on my chest. From the other room, I can hear Benji talking to his train set. He doesn't know yet what this type of freedom feels like; the kind that comes with having suffered, felt, lived. The type I have learned as I grow. He does, however, know what it means to move from your heart: he does it every day without even trying. It's as natural to him as a swing set. Or Raffi.
And we're teaching each other, my Benji and I. Holding hands as we cross the street and into the sweetness of life.
Benji, despite all his warmth and goodness, is capable of taking his voice to this guttural place--a scream so potent that you're left wondering if it's even human--that renders me inert. I freeze like a stunned chicken. Funnily enough, it's almost never rooted in anything substantial; when he actually faceplants on the sidewalk, more often than not, he shakes it off and keeps running. Brushing teeth, however, can be an all-out war.
"I WANNA BRUSH MY TEEEEEEETH!!!!!!!"
Benji, when you throw your toothbrush in the toilet, you don't get to brush your teeth.
"WANNA BRUUUSHH TEEEEEEEEEEETH."
Benji, I don't like it when you punch me in the neck.
And so it goes. This is usually the point that the baby starts to cry, inspired by the general cacophony and not one to be outdone by flying toothbrushes. Sometimes, I can smell the tantrum coming a mile away; like when we're about to cross the street and Benji gives me this look, a look that quite plainly says, "I am going to do anything and everything in my power to scare the living bejeezus out of you." At this point, he tears across the street in a flash of sandals and hair, and I am forced to pin him to the sidewalk and wrestle him into the stroller, where he proceeds to scream himself into oblivion. I usually walk around the block a few times, smiling eerily at anyone who passes by, pretending that I--like they--have no idea how this demon snuck into my stroller.
When he's done howling, however, Benji brings his hands up to his face and begins his mantra. "Takea deeep breat, caaaam down. Takea deeep breat, caaam down." Sometimes he'll do this for five minutes before needing a response.
That's right, Benji. Deep breaths.
"Big hug, Jenna."
Big hug, Benji.
I thought about it once, and realized something funny. If he's at his Terrible Twos--throwing fits in grocery stores because he's tired, or they've moved the yogurt-covered raisins, or he doesn't know what's coming next--where does that place me? I'm twenty-two years old. That's TWICE the two, 2x the terrible, 2x the need to throw tantrums at bath time. I proposed this idea to Benji once, watching dazedly as he constructed a tower of legos. What do you think about that, Benji?
"Peanutbuddur petzels."
So we're really not that different, him and I. All we ever want, all we're ever truly screaming for, are peanut butter pretzels and a long nap.
12. When you're a child, there's this delicious feeling of riding in the back of a vehicle and losing all sense of time and space. It doesn't matter where you are, or where you're going; all you know is you're getting there, and someone else is making sure you do. You can close your eyes, the sounds of the street ebbing as your consciousness does. There's no resistance in this. No wondering whether you should take out your contacts before you fall asleep, no fretting over whether you've shut down your computer or fed your fish or finished the shit that stands between you and a good night's sleep.
Benji, you've inspired me to feel joy down to my skinny skin skin. When we went to Sauvie Island, watching you run into the water--your feet galloping over one another, your skin glowing under tiny droplets of sun and sea--I felt something awaken in me, like wonder. I'm not sure I knew what that meant until now.
Or rather I did, but I had forgotten. Forgotten until I watched you eat hummus by the fistful, bits of cracker stuck in your hair, blackberries staining your cheeks and your chin. Forgotten until you ran into my lap today, wrapping your arms around my neck and pressing your nose to mine; giving me that look that says you'll trust me forever, your accordion ribcage crumpling and expanding like it's just learning how to breathe.
When I think of leaving you, I want to collapse.
13. To walk down the street with a toddler is to know that you might end up staring at the same flower for twenty minutes, and often do.
14. Sometimes, magic happens. The more enlightened among us might see perfect timing: as things being set into motion long before they actually come to fruition, as souls making an agreement to meet when they're ready. The rest of us just feel damn lucky.
A little less than 2 years ago, I met Shakey Graves at Pitzer College. I remember walking up after his show, stupidly confident as only someone in a costume rental can be, and inviting him to a party at the Co-op. A little less than 2 weeks ago, I saw him again; this time, at a bluegrass festival. Still stupidly confident, but minus the costume, I approached. He looked at me quizzically.
"Did you by any chance invite me to a Co-op?"
As a matter of fact, I did.
Suddenly, his brows split; I did my best to appear nonchalant, but ended up tying my purse string in a quadruple knot just to have something to do with my hands. He cleared his throat. "Do you have any idea how much I thought about that night? Here's how I feel about missing that party: re-GRET. Re-GREEEEEET."
That was about the time that my legs stopped working.
But they must have started working eventually, because I remember two-stepping beneath the trees behind the Pump House. My dress bunched up around my ankles, and I sank into the realization that anything can happen. Anyone can drink a box of red wine, stare down the throat of possibility, and stomp over a mat of muddy hay; anything that can occur between two human beings having a real-live connection, will. And does. He scratched against my cheek. This is why I invited you to the Co-op party, I told him, and laughed. And he buried me into his arms.
Running away from his car that night, the light peaking over the stage in the distance, I drank in the things that only I'll know. Before I settled into sleep, however, I played the evening's reel in my head; by morning, it'd already be settled into half-dream, and I wanted to remember. If I didn't have time to anticipate it, did it really happen? If a tree falls in the forest...
The funny thing about a little bit is, you always want a little bit more. When Benji has tortilla chips, if you let him have a few before dinner, he'll boycott his burrito altogether and cling to the idea of chips: CHIPS. Suddenly he wants to eat all of them, and won't be able to think of anything else until he does. For me, it wasn't enough to kiss the sunrise with a beautiful stranger; I wanted him to be inside my head, for him to know that I know that he knows that feeling his fingers in mine was a point of no return. And yet... when I ran back into the woods that night, his song at my back, I found magic in the mystery. There is love in what is left beautifully unfinished, because that in itself can feel whole.
And that is what separates me from Benji. At times when I feel like we both just want to eat a quesadilla and listen to Raffi, I remember this: holding back, leaving room for anticipation, is something I've earned. It's something I've grown into, like my grown-up clothes.
The next day, I got a message.
"You are a real live Disney princess."
And that was enough. According to Benji, that's the best compliment there is; and lest we forget, his is the only opinion that matters.
15. The roof of my mouth has already healed from where I burned it on my pizza. I run my tongue over its slickness and understand: Our hearts have the ability to mend themselves. Isn't amazing how things fade?
Some things, however, stay with us. When I pitch my brain forward to years down the road, picturing Benji in his adult life--running, perhaps, through his own dawn-lit forest--I hope he retains what his childhood has taught me. When he sprints toward the swing set, or into my arms at the end of the school day; when he collapses into bed, blanket tucked under his arm, sleep already saturating the pillow... he has no regrets. None. He surges through life like a rocket, knowing that each day is NEW, and better than the last--how could it not be? Sure, today we got to watch The Elephant Show... but tomorrow, we'll probably do it again. And again. And again.
A beautiful night at a music festival is not the pinnacle of my young life. A highlight, sure--but not the pinnacle. This is the case in babies and in bluegrass, and is the lesson I leave the summer with: that life, if we choose to see it as so, is really only ever getting better all the time. There's always a bigger playground, better shoes, a later bedtime, more joy than we thought we were capable of feeling. Benji, he wants to grow up. He's in a hurry to get to those shoes.
As for me, I'm learning to be content where I am: sitting in the dining room in a house I don't own, cup of tea at my elbow, a baby asleep on my chest. From the other room, I can hear Benji talking to his train set. He doesn't know yet what this type of freedom feels like; the kind that comes with having suffered, felt, lived. The type I have learned as I grow. He does, however, know what it means to move from your heart: he does it every day without even trying. It's as natural to him as a swing set. Or Raffi.
And we're teaching each other, my Benji and I. Holding hands as we cross the street and into the sweetness of life.
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