finding our rhythm

It's been ages since I've had the feeling that hit me with considerable force today, leaving me limp and bewildered in its wake. It was the how-can-it-be-only-10:30-in-the-morning experience, the what-in-the-world-will-I-do-with-this-kid-until-naptime moment; a dark realization that my bag of tricks is empty, and a longing to lean on the fast forward button. (Yes the one on the VCR, so I can listen contentedly to the video cassette tape whirring along).

Lately Gabriel is confronting his limitations, and he doesn't like it one bit. Who can blame him? It's as if his mind is racing ahead, conceptualizing things he would like to do, and the rest of him hasn't caught up yet. He'll be peacefully drawing on the kitchen floor, sprawled on his belly with many versions of wheeled vehicles scattered on scrap paper all around him, until he suddenly utters a piercing shout of despair. He'll yell out, This doesn't look like a double decker bus! and crumple up his drawing, throwing it across the room.

After what seems like a lot of busy, purposeful days with Gabriel, we found ourselves with nothing on the agenda this morning. I suggested we take out his scooter. Midway down the block, he insisted on taking out his bike instead. All was going well, until I gently reminded him about pedaling backwards to brake.

I don't like to do that. I like to go in the grass to stop.

Five minutes later, Gabriel is barreling down the hill. He decides to go for a grass-assisted brake, loses his balance on the bumpy weeds and winds up on the sidewalk with a bloody knee and his bike on top of him. Oh, he was mad. Terribly embarrassed. And seriously pissed at me for having witnessed the whole thing. So yes, it was a bad time to bring up the back pedal thing again.

I. DON'T. LIKE. TO. DO. THAT.

He is kicking the bike. He is crying and ripping at his helmet. We have a little fight about the need to wear his helmet when riding. He refuses and begins to cry harder. I start walking his miniature red bicycle with flames painted on the sides slowly up the sidewalk, listening to the sound of his angry sobbing behind me which is punctuated every so often by a context-less yet emphatic NO.

This is the miserable point in the story when I start to wonder when naptime will come, and how I might facilitate its speedy arrival. It is 98 degrees out, and we are a sorry sight.

When we make it home, we both drink some water. I observe that the plants in the front yard must be thirsty too, especially the herbs that Gabriel and I planted together.

Could we give them some water now?

What a fine idea! Why, yes we could. And suddenly we were working together, walking to and from the rain barrel, watering and weeding the herbs, talking to them and apologizing for not thinking of them sooner in this awful heat. That somehow led to filling the loader of a new-to-us enormous old plastic tractor with water from the hose, and dumping it into a wheelbarrow, and then dumping that into a pink plastic storage box fetched from the garage. Then the obvious thing to do was to take off all Gabriel's clothes so he could get into the pink plastic tub, a spot from which he could easily fill a small orange pitcher, step over the edge, and trot purposefully to slake the thirst of the nearby flowers and beans in the garden.

It is hard to explain how running back and forth between a pink plastic tub and the garden in nothing but a pair of blue Crocs for all the neighborhood to see could be so dignifying. But it was. We were making a contribution! Gabriel watered and I weeded. There was something at stake in our coordinated efforts.

And then somehow it was already noon. We were hot and sweaty, but before we went in I picked a big bunch of kale to roast for lunch. Peanut butter and jelly and kale chips. It totally works.

 

We had gone from pushing and pulling each other to being in sync, to relishing a spontaneous rhythm. We were moving along inside that easy kind of flow that you can get swept up in sometimes, when time takes a back seat. Who knows how you got there to begin with? If that mysterious transition from jerky, strained movement to effortless flow had been in the context of writing a story or painting a picture, I might have said the muse paid me a visit. But what do you say when its relational? It was our mojo, it was grace, it was a fairy whose special job in the world is sprinkling people who love each other with magic dust so that they might join together anew with fresh affection and delight.

All I know is that it had nothing to do with will. Rather it had to do with both of us letting go of our wills - probably because we were so beat down by a rough tantrum in the heat that we lost interest in forcing our agendas further. However we got there, it was good. Oh, there were more tense moments and near-tantrums. That's just where we're at these days. But I had the memory of our harmonious garden interlude, our gift from the fairies. 

Gabriel has been railing at his limits, but this morning was a reminder for me that our limits are not the end of the story. Not even close. Love can transcend them, opening our gates wide even when we would rather they remain shut! It is mystifying, isn't it?

Whether you are coaxing words onto a page or a child out of a car seat today, here's wishing you some of that mysterious mojo, that fairy dust that can make you forget time altogether. Thank you, as ever, for reading.