Beatrice: Yes. I want to snuggle with you, Gabriel.
...And then I peeked around the corner into the living room and saw her wipe her nose on her sleeve and solemnly climb onto the couch and relax into his arms. They were so still, and it lasted for at least two minutes. Moments before, Beatrice had flung herself onto the couch, sobbing about some piece of plastic or candy or trash or something that someone else had and she didn't (happens thirty times a day). I was ignoring the anguish and hoping she would eventually get distracted. Enter Gabriel, who must have been feeling particularly compassionate and wise just then, and most likely in need of a snuggle himself.
It still boggles my mind how powerfully I respond to the quality of the connections the children have with one another. When they bicker, I experience nearly intolerable anger. Part of me would like to kill them just to make them stop being mean to each other. Better to be dead than a name-calling tattletale? Maybe...? But you know, there is no logic when I feel The Rage.
In just the same way, my heart becomes intolerably full when they treat each other with gentleness, kindness, humor. It is so joyful I want to cry, or dance, or shout - a kind of shivery, embodied joy that demands expression. When I stumble onto a precious, brief moment that is happening independent of me, in which they are creating a safe harbor for one another - a refuge from the growing up storms within and without - then I really know that everything is okay. God is real, love is real; we belong to one another in profound ways that I cannot begin to comprehend.
Makes me think of a lyric from an old Belle and Sebastian song:
a family's like a loaded gun
point it in the wrong direction, someone's going to get killed
I'm not sure I understand it the way Stuart intended but it has spontaneously popped into my head many times as a parent, often when I am able to step back and note the intensity of my emotions, which hurtle every which way, all in a day's work. You can't help but worry about the potential for someone getting hurt. The stakes are so very high.
On the other hand, point it in the right direction, someone might find a kind of peace and safety that makes the risk worth taking a million times over. I doubt that Gabriel and Beatrice will remember those two minutes in any kind of conventional, narrative sense when they are all grown up. But I know that their bodies and souls will.
No comments:
Post a Comment