Parent

The morning appears grey and there is a little breeze showing up on the rose bush. The coolness is sweet at 64 degrees fahrenheit this day.  Today is Sunday.

It took a twelve year old to show me what cord went with what device in order to get things charged last night.  That's how it is these days.  Young ones just have the curiosity and determination to make the tech stuff work, sort through every manner of charging cords, and never let a device run out of battery!  What has the new reality brought?

One thing that will never be part of the lived experience of some (those without kids) is what it is to have a new generation taking over your life, constantly. Parenting has special life chapters - and those new chapters must hold both incredibly joyous experiences along with an equal measure of fear and frustration. And unless one is there in the role of being a guide/and guided - there is no way to fully appreciate that role.  It's like being in a club that can only be joined by those who take up the challenge.

Thinking about the experiences of growing up in a household of four kids and two parents (one of whom was hardly home because of work), the feeling of fullness enters.  There is all of the chaos of the world in the microcosm of a household;  and there is all of the basics of how to care and love for one another.  If one misses this, or is not lucky enough to have parents who know how to share their love - then being part of a family won't help to know how to operate in the world of intimate relations and less intimate ones, too.

What having a small person, who isn't quite at the place of complete self-sufficiency and yet is quite sure about thinking their ability to survive in the world is already in place, must be a scary experience.  While one might wish to support the independence and self-direction; one also might wish to hold on to the softness and tenderness of the child that once was.  The instruction on how to be in the world, in relationships, in yet another family;  how to know what life principles to share and reinforce;  how to cultivate a reverence for life and the good fortune of being born a human being instead of a toad – these can be hard things to teach.

It struck me that the only way to really transmit anything about living and life must be to love so completely that one must become a child sometimes, too. Become clueless, unable to figure things out about living in the world now, and perhaps surrender to the energy that a new generation will enter.  It happens whether we want it to, or not.  

Figuring out how to make techie devices operate and finding the right cord out of the mess of cords one collects these days – that's a new one.  Loving and caring – that stuff is of the ages.  It seems to be so:  what goes around, eventually comes back around.  A parent (and not necessarily a biological one!) is the link in the circle of life.