TO THE WIND

There is a painting hanging in our porch.  It’s not a scenic landscape or a family portrait or even a still life.  If you need a label I guess it would be best described as a ‘thought provoker’.

I’ve had more than one criticism of the subject matter.  Not everyone would hang a painting of a few dandelions gone to seed in their house, but I did.  You see, these dandelions don’t stand alone.  There is also the message “Some see a weed, some see a wish” under where the tiny parachute-like seeds are letting go to drift on the wind.  As much as I don’t appreciate that my lawn is yellow with them in June every year, there’s still the whimsical little girl in me who likes to believe in magic and wishes, and being reminded of this as we leave and enter our house seems to be the right frame of mind.

This time of year, with the school year ending and graduations being celebrated, the concept of seeds scattering to the wind seems especially poignant.  They were born here, grew here, bloomed here, and over the last few years have matured (we hope) to the point where further growth requires that they take on new challenges.  They don’t all move in the physical sense to new addresses but their lives expand to involve jobs, relationships, travel.  Some find their new ground to put down roots right away, some drift on the wind for much longer.  Some stay close to home, some circle the globe.

The opposite of ‘scattering to the wind’ is happening in our community this weekend – the multiples of generations who have scattered to the winds have been invited back to their roots to share stories, renew friendships, and revisit memories – some of the most wonderful human experiences.  Everyone will return to their daily lives afterwards but for a few days they will touch base with their roots.  Sometimes seeing life through the lens of your personal history promotes new growth too, I wish a most wonderful weekend to everyone.

This summer is a time of some serious comings and goings for our family.  In less than a month we will say goodbye for a couple years to a daughter, son-in-law, and two grandsons as they move to South Africa for work.  In the intervening time before they go they will spend as much cousin time as possible at Grandma and Grandpa’s farm and we will all try not to think about how much they will have grown by the time they can do it again.  There are big adventures awaiting and we plan to go share some with them in their new home.  We are counting on these seeds circling back in due time, although with this kind of experience so early in their lives it is quite possible that Africa will only whet the boys’ appetite for more.  Their seeds, once they are ripe, may travel even farther yet.

This is also the summer when one of our seeds returns from Australia – almost.  We have a grandson enrolling in a college in B.C. on a volleyball scholarship.  We have an Air B&B booked for a week in August to spend some precious family time with him and his father as he gets in touch with his Canadian side.  Vancouver is still a long way from Saskatchewan but at least getting there doesn’t require a passport and 24 hours travel time.

My ‘weed or wish’ painting has a few other symbols to fulfill its promise of good fortune.  The artist (a talented friend) also added the silhouette of two hummingbirds as she knows how I love them, followed by a trail of tiny loose feathers which symbolize gifts.  All of this on a humble background of rough barn board and painted in low-key colours.  It is not meant to excite the senses or dazzle with flamboyant colour.  Rather, it highlights the idea of a ‘cup half full’ and an attitude of ‘what might come next’.  Originally it was commissioned to hang in another room in my house but both the painting and its concept were too large for anywhere else than where people enter into, or take their leave of, our home.

Some see weeds.

I see wishes.

 

YET

I remember, about a million years ago, when I brought my first baby home from the hospital, how I was overwhelmed with the responsibility of raising a new human being.  The weight of getting it right, of feeding her the right diet, of making sure she got the right balance of exercise and education, of tending to her emotional needs, of teaching her the concepts of right and wrong, and most importantly – not biting poor little Robbie Fitzpatrick every time she saw him. 

Well, I doubted I was up to the task of child rearing.

I’ve often thought that it is lucky that babies tend to happen with very little planning.  If we parents knew what we were letting ourselves in for and gave creating a baby even an hour’s worth of forethought the human race would have died out back when we still lived in caves.

But, being new to the game and wanting to do my best I got my hands on the parenting book everyone was talking about; Doctor Benjiman Spock’s Baby and Child Care.  I know I read it from cover to cover, and I’m sure little Robbie’s mom and I discussed it over coffee many times but all I really remember about it now is that I stopped hanging on his every word when a story circulated that his son had ended up in jail.  So much for advice from the experts.  (I just looked it up, the story was not true, but my trust in him had been tarnished so his book got shelved.) 

My toddler eventually quit biting Robbie.  If I remember right the cure was for him to bite her back.

Over my child-rearing years I did read other advice books and columns but mostly I relaxed into the job with the philosophy of ‘trust your gut’, which is quite ironic considering that in my research on Doctor Spock I discovered that his main advice to new parents was to ‘trust your instincts’.  I guess his book had a lasting effect on me after all. 

There is only one other article that stands out in my memory.  I must have been raising teenagers by this time and the writer was talking about how difficult and also important it is to have rules.  And how the more rigid the rules are the greater the likelihood of failure.  She used the example of a game of tiddlywinks where you use one small plastic disc to move another one by pressing down on its edge.  If you press lightly it only flips a little distance, but if you apply a lot of force you might not ever find that disc again.  So it is with kids – apply too much force and you drive them away.  I don’t know why but that one always stuck with me.  You can take what you want from this … one of my kids lives in Australia and another is headed to Africa for a couple years.  I don’t think it’s related to tiddlywinks.

Regardless, I have moved on to grandparenting now.  It is absolutely no easier on the nerves to watch my kids raise their kids.  The challenges are the same, the stimuli of phones and computers and the Internet are everywhere, and the stakes are every bit as high.  All you want to do is raise a caring, confident, responsible, kind human being.  It’s so much hard work!

But, every-once-in a-while a true parenting nugget of wisdom comes along and you just have to appreciate its simplicity.

While I was visiting with my daughter and her kids on the weekend we went to a playground and she and her son were playing catch.  She was trying to teach him how to improve his throw but he told her “That’s as far as I can throw it.”

“Yet.” she said.  “That’s as far as you can throw it, yet.”

See the difference? 

By adding that simple, tiny, three letter word on at the end you have taken a statement of self-limiting acceptance and opened the door to possibility.  From a statement that sounds like defeat, into plan to do better.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen three letters – y-e-t - work so much magic before.  Who knew that synonyms for yet were hope, confidence, courage, inspiration, optimism, promise, and potential? 

Whatever we can’t do becomes a goal to work towards when you add ‘yet’.

This is not only my new go-to for parenting advice … but for life in general.