Find a Window
There is, as usual, a bunch of stuff that I need to do that I've been avoiding. Some of it is at the point where further avoidance will have actual notable consequences, and yet, of course, the longer I've put it off the more I don't want to do it.
I was talking about all this at breakfast this morning, mostly to the Renaissance Woman but the Mermaid Girl was there too, picking at her cereal in her usual morning fog.
"It's like all my fear and resistance is this great big WALL," I said miserably. "And I have to BLAST THROUGH that wall to get anything done."
RW, sensibly, suggested that rather than think about blasting through the wall, I just let the wall stay there and sort of do a few things around it.
And then MG looked up from her cereal and said, "Find a window."
I blinked at her. Sometimes she says things that don't seem to make sense, because she's following her own train of thought and not whatever the grownup conversation is, and I was thinking maybe this was one of those times. We'd been talking a lot about windows lately, what with all this heat.
"You don't need to break down the wall," she explained patiently. "Just find a window. Or make a window."
"Oh!" I said, and "Thank you!" and "That's just exactly it! Wow! Thank you!" It was like the Buddha had airlifted down to our breakfast table in the guise of an eight-and-three-quarters-year-old girl whose hair was dipping into her cereal milk at that very moment.
She was still late to school. Probably to throw us off the track so we don't figure out that the Enlightened One lives among us.
Off to find a window, now.
I was talking about all this at breakfast this morning, mostly to the Renaissance Woman but the Mermaid Girl was there too, picking at her cereal in her usual morning fog.
"It's like all my fear and resistance is this great big WALL," I said miserably. "And I have to BLAST THROUGH that wall to get anything done."
RW, sensibly, suggested that rather than think about blasting through the wall, I just let the wall stay there and sort of do a few things around it.
And then MG looked up from her cereal and said, "Find a window."
I blinked at her. Sometimes she says things that don't seem to make sense, because she's following her own train of thought and not whatever the grownup conversation is, and I was thinking maybe this was one of those times. We'd been talking a lot about windows lately, what with all this heat.
"You don't need to break down the wall," she explained patiently. "Just find a window. Or make a window."
"Oh!" I said, and "Thank you!" and "That's just exactly it! Wow! Thank you!" It was like the Buddha had airlifted down to our breakfast table in the guise of an eight-and-three-quarters-year-old girl whose hair was dipping into her cereal milk at that very moment.
She was still late to school. Probably to throw us off the track so we don't figure out that the Enlightened One lives among us.
Off to find a window, now.
posted by elswhere | 9:46 AM
8 Comments:
Go, MG!
That's much awesomer than what I was going to say, which is that it has often been my experience that such walls only look formidable, and are in fact made of paper. Such that we get ourselves all worked up to blast through with all our might, only to find ourselves suddenly on the other side going, "Was that IT?" and blinking stupidly.
That is so.darn.cool.
She is wise in the ways of the adage, that one.
Oh, I *LOVE* this. Such wisdom!!
It's amazing when they get old enough and we can learn from their skills and abilities. Really cool.
Please inform MG that I will be making a pilgrimage to her shrine post-haste, because I have often found myself feeling exactly the way you describe, and now I have a new mantra for those trying days!
And you know what to do with those open windows? Keep passin' them, of course.
dayenu!
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