Down the Lane

    The sun is low. Babies are jammied.
Wheels of the parenting wagon are squeaking, slowing wobbling,
willing them to carry until bedtime.
Fire smoke has perfumed hair during memory filled dinners ’round a fire pit
The night is twinkling indecision –
the dusk yawns.
Summer is giving way to autumn.
Mothers hush this quiet whispering and will night to fall.
For although thankful for sweet days that begin at dawn and end at dusk,
it is time to give way to autumn’s promises of cool nights to come.

Days, when everything is pushing the other way, causing you to reroute. Ever have them? I wouldn’t call this “failing” or even “malfunction”, it is more akin to bumpers on a bowling alley. The heavy ball of thought and determination is no match for the ever present bumper, covering ditches of distraction, yet resistant to the ball’s demands.

When this happens I am learning more and more to let the proverbial ball roll. Clunking along, scratched and bumped, the ten pin goal is still met and a strike is won regardless of the journey to them. “Go with it,” says the Whisperings in my ears. “Love where you are and trust where I am taking you,” It continues to encourage. Bump, roll, curving and re-routing, I am still on the right path even if all signs along the way seem to say otherwise.

September. It has always been a bitter-sweet month for me. As a homeschooler I never felt left-out not getting on a school bus or “going” to school. I felt the same butterflies, the same pressure to learn, the same excitement with a new backpack, the same thrill of achieving and meeting goals. It isn’t much different as an adult, which I suppose as a kid I expected it would be different when I got older. I still enjoy a challenge and equally enjoy completing the task list. I was the kid that finished a week’s worth of school by Tuesday morning. I had dreams of completing all of my school, for the year, by September 30th. Why? Because if I knew what was needing to be done, why wait?

I am learning that being a hard worker, an over-achiever type has its perks. But there are downsides. I don’t think I need to explain them, it is in all of us. My biggest learning curve lately is allowing myself to slow down. Literally, Rory asked me to “Stop! Stop! Smell this [rose] with me.”

Clunk. Bump. Scratch. Roll. I am getting it slowly. John Steinbeck, an American writer, said that, “A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.” The bumpers of parenting, of living life, are proving this to be true. To gain much I have to give much. Laying on the carpet playing ninjas and pirates for hours, setting up train tracks and realizing I am alone after three bridges, two tunnels, and an engine house have finally come together, or letting the butterflies in my belly stay low as I watch them fight through the waves.

This journey, parenting, life, loving, is out of my control, and for good reason. How much more I am learning by just being. “It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.” – Ernest Hemingway