Sunday, March 13, 2011

Day 76

I thought a lot about yesterday's post. Thanks for your comments. I haven't thought it completely through, but it seems that I need to strike some sort of balance here. I suspect I might be working something out. It seems the sort of thing I need to process.
One thing that rings true is that the vision of children (and Poppets) is just as magical as William Blake believed it to be and every bit as real as "the ordinary light of day."
The trick might be to understand how to balance the two.
Possibly, many have learned to do this already. If you have, I welcome any comments or help sorting this out. And if you haven't, I welcome your wildest guesses. Who knows? You may have it.
In the meantime, I made this poppet, dressed in costume, reading a book with a fairy on the cover, and doing both with joyful abandon. I spent yesterday with it, working on these questions, reminding me that they matter in the longer run, even with tragic news around us.


Such sadness in Japan.

I believe that even in the worst of times, and possibly especially in the worst times, knowledge is the very key to survival. I believe there is knowledge of value in stories and those of us who can, should make them. And that learning is doing our part.

And I believe we should play and play and play. Because play is the brain's vegetables.
...and eat vegetables, because vegetables are the brain's vegetables too.

And because play brings happiness.
Happiness is as essential to humans as salt. That is to say, we can live without it, but not for very long.

I'm working on balancing some things, obviously. Thanks for being here with me as I shamelessly bare my thoughts to you. Today it seems the right thing to do.
All that said, I probably said it better here, in the quiet and simple language of Poppet:

4 comments:

mordicai said...

Oh man; when I was a kid I worried about banality. Then I realized that adulthood meant freedom & love; things children are denied. Eff being a kid-- that was the worst.

lisa said...

mordicai: I hear you. For sure. Possibly we 'throw the baby out with the bathwater' when we let go of it.

DavidK said...

It's always hard to balance one's own desires for our children with the knowledge that those desires may have no importance or consequence to the child, and the very act of expressing those desires, even unconsciously, may push the child in an opposing direction. With our daughter, I've found it best to be upfront about it - 'this is what I want, and these are the reasons for it'. There are times when it is non-negotiable, and there are times when I can be persuaded. The hardest part is recognizing when it is important to be flexible. The older she gets, the more I have to defer to the flexible side. If I find myself reflexively becoming defensive or saying 'no', then I often need to determine my underlying issues. Often I realize that it's more an issue for me, rather than something that is about her. Is this a 'teaching' moment or a 'learning' moment? Is it something I need to tell her, or something she needs to learn for herself? And, is my teaching the best way for her to learn it? Once again, the older she gets, the more I find I need to back away from the teaching and rely on her ability to learn from her own actions. Recently I've been relying on a variation of the socratic method of teaching, in which I ask questions designed to elicit responses about the issue. I've found that best way to be sure that you know something is to teach it to someone. So, I cede the teacher role to her - by my taking on the role of the questioner, she takes on the role of the teacher, she does the teaching, and hopefully arrives at a better understanding for herself of the issues at hand and how she feels about them, by the act of answering my questions.

Michael Anthony said...

I was always a rebel as a kid, so when I have kids, all I can think about his karma.