Today, there were skaters on the pond. They had shoveled away the snow and left only the smooth, glistening surface of the ice. And my adult response was,"Holy shit, those idiots are going to fall in!" But as I walked around the pond and I watched, I felt a childish joy bubbling to the surface. They were laughing. And skating backwards. And twirling while holding hands. They had created such joy. Their laughter echoed as I walked and I couldn't help but love everything about them and that morning and their ridiculous ice skates and their dogs running around and barking at their heels.
I wondered at the last time I had done something solely for the purpose of eliciting joy. Something as simple as dusting off a pond and throwing on some skates and being extremely present.
In college I nailed a book I deplored to our living room wall out of spite, but also because it was a hilariously vindictive act of judgment on the author. We had people over for pretzels and jug-wine and terrible singing. We filled one friend's room full of balloons on her birthday and filled another's--on a consistent basis--with new-car-spray.
I sat in an empty music building attempting to master a Chopin that was far too hard for me because nailing the difficult passages brought me such satisfaction, such pure joy. I chose to go to Kenya and to teach on the reservation and to go back to school to pursue a degree in science because the world felt like a place worth exploring, a place where mystery lurked behind every corner.
A dearest friend of mine recently sent me this poem: https://poets.org/poem/will-you
There are many things about this poem that I still mull over, but these lines, in particular, stuck with me:
...oh come on now, suck it up.
That’s what I said to my children.
Suck what up? my daughter asked,
and, because she is so young, I told her
I didn’t know and never mind, and she took
that for an answer. My children are so young
when I turn off the radio as the news turns
to counting the dead or naming the act,
they aren’t even suspicious. My children
are so young they cannot imagine a world
like the one they live in. Their God is still
a real God, a whole God, a God made wholly
of actions. And I think they think I work
for that God. And I know they will someday soon
see everything and they will know about
everything and they will no longer take
never mind for an answer.
After watching the skaters this morning, I couldn't help but wonder if maybe the adults in the room have the entire thing backward. It strikes me as distinctly possible that the God of children is closer to any God invented by any of the broken adults who have the hubris to invent a doctrine for other men to follow. Part of what's discussed in the poem is the loss of innocence, but more than that, there's a sense that growing up leads to some kind of learning that alters everything, that more knowing means coming to understand the world is filled with chaos and bad things and the names of the dead and things we would rather not consider too deeply and heavy silences and insomnia and the slow death of infinite, small moments of beauty.
And while I think that is partially true, while I think she's not wrong, I couldn't help but wonder while watching two adult humans frolicking on a pond like children if it isn't the children who have more of it right and the adults who are just a tiny bit broken?
I have forgotten so much. I have lost so much. I haven't laughed close to peeing-my-pants in close to a decade. I polite laugh far too often. I scroll through my phone while my children ask me questions because numb is easier than feeling. I haven't traveled to a country with such a foreign culture that I have felt internally uncomfortable with my concept of reality in longer than a decade. I have found far too much comfort and ease in routine and consistency and reliability and I have found--much to my own horror--an ease accepting my version of reality without question, without considering what privilege or experience or perspective brought me to that specific conclusion.
But maybe that's the thing our children haven't forgotten? They remember the spark of joy and the pleasure of deep, raw laughter. They haven't forgotten the joy of spreading one's limbs to create a snow angel or of drawing a valentine to give to the new kid in class who doesn't have friends yet. Our children still belong to one another; they haven't lived so long that they have forgotten that our true strength and identity and beauty lies in the fact that we are all, in every moment, simply a fragment of humanity that is better and stronger and more able when we find ourselves together. And more specifically, when we find ourselves caring for one another.
They remember the power of song and story and mystery. They remember the joy of a newly discovered friendship. They believe still in powers unseen and they feel, viscerally, the low drum beat of their humanity that connects them to every other living thing on the planet.
This morning, while I walked around that lake, I could remember, too. We are here to be joyful. We are here to love. You belong to me and I to you and that has always been the only truth. Everything else is noise and distraction and a dead end. I am so glad you are here with me. I love you.
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