A little extra love

I found myself unexpectedly back in school this week; not as a teacher or a student, but as an EA. 

In a whirlwind 10-minute tour and outline of my duties (mostly covering lunch breaks and other duties for actual EAs), I got a bird's eye view of the million moving parts that make an elementary school run.

While I've looked at school as both a student and a teacher, I've never peeped into it from the perspective of an EA. My tour guide showed me a room for body breaks and the walking path for kids who need a few minutes out of their classroom and posters with emotional regulation reminders and in the middle of it all she said "there are so many kids who just need a little extra love."

And like

I kept on walking like an actual normal human but inside I felt like a field full of fireflies, a night sky full of stars. 

Because this is our whole beautiful heartbreaking hope-giving point.

(Love God, said Jesus, and love everyone else. Love your neighbour as yourself.)

I have lived for almost 39 years and my life has been filled with what I imagine is the usual mixture of gladness and sorrow and I have been blessed in so many ways and yet I can't think of any good reason for sticking around this place except for love.

They say there's nothing new under the sun: matter may change shape and form but the sum total of matter stays the same. Whatever we do, we do with the stuff we've got. And we get to try our hands at alchemy and turn what we've got into love.

I mean - we can do the opposite too. We can take our person and energy into the day and spread rage and leave people cringing in our wake. We can leave filth and darkness and agony and hatred and apathy.

But, we can - and so many people do - take a morning cup of coffee and a few pieces of toast and walk out into the world and expend that energy as kindness. We get to take these bodies we're in and work gentleness into the places that surround us, create warmth and light and cleanliness and beauty. We get to inhale the air and speak words that comfort, words that inspire, sing songs that awaken whole rooms inside.

We get to take what we've got, and give a little extra love.

And there are a whole lot of people that need a little extra love.

xo.

 

Grownups at play

A few months ago Vava and I were walking home down the broad sidewalk and gentle hill of our main street. Her little hand was nestled in mine. Grey clouds were rolling in, high up in the sky, and little puffs of wind blew about. 

It was a Sunday, and the day felt free and light. There was very little traffic and hardly anyone around.

I looked down at my long-limbed girl, freckle-faced and starry-souled.

"Wanna skip?" I asked.

Her face lit up. We skipped. Holding hands, l-left r-right, l-left r-right all the way down the long hill, blocks and blocks of skipping. We laughed and laughed from sheer joy until we ran out of breath, then we linked hands and did it again.

And a few weeks later I was walking the same route again, this time by myself, and I really wanted to skip. It's faster, and fun, and my walk was kind of boring. And the memory of our gleeful skip danced on ahead of me while I walked on, step after boring step.

You know how when you're a kid, you can't wait to grow up because you'll be in charge of you?  And you think you'll be able to do anything you want?

But you won't be able to skip down the street by yourself. Or wander in the woods, feeling the different textures of bark and looking under moss for bugs and challenging your friends to find the biggest mushrooms. Or lie upside down on the couch with your feet on the wall, absorbed in your book.

I mean, you can. But with a side order of side-eye and maybe a few questions about your sanity.

Why did we ever decide that skipping isn't for grownups? Or climbing trees? Or biking with no hands? Why do these things signal something wrong, instead of something deeply, freely, beautifully right?

[Our culture tells us that for adults, pursuing interests should be productive, or competitive, or financially driven. 

A grown man biking furiously with a delivery box on his bike? Responsible. A grown man biking as fast as he can down the street with a racing bib on his shirt? Laudable. A grown man racing down the street on his bike, chortling with glee? Wacko.

Anyway.]

I held in the skip until I got to my own street. I couldn't see anyone out and about. And so I picked up my feet and careened down the sidewalk l-left r-right, l-left r-right all the way home.  Bliss.

Last night I was driving down a street in the dark and I saw a man doing the same thing. Not skipping, but practicing tricks on his bike. He was on the far end of middle age, still wearing the dressy shirt I imagine he'd worn to work. 

When I drew alongside him he was pedaling steadily, hands in the air, a look of quiet bliss on his face. I felt a wave of joy and unity and a sense of rightness. Humans at play are captivating.

When the day breaks - when the morning stars sing together and the trees of the field clap their hands - I will not trudge down the streets of gold. I may bike. I may skip. If the good Lord sees fit to grant me some rhythm I will even dance.

And all the grownups will play.

(But it's so much better if we start now!)