“I like the blue butterfly.”
“I like the blue butterfly, too.”
“NO! No, you don’t! You like the green butterfly.”
“Okay. I like the green butterfly.”
Is that caving? I’ve tried to explain to him that we can both like the blue butterfly, or the yellow truck, or buses, or ice cream or Daddy or… But no, Blue insists that he likes one thing and I like another. We have to be different. His way of being two and exerting control. Ordering the world. I guess we all do – perhaps not quite as illogically or forcefully. We all need to set limits.
The holidays were a kind of limitless time. Some excess, sure, but also just a time when the limits were relaxed. Nap times were deferred or extended or cancelled as the day required. Meals were flexible. Chocolate was prevalent. The new scooter was very much a living room fixture. (Though there was evidence of some limits because if Beangirl had her way completely, the scooter would have been her bedfellow. On the top bunk.)
It’s good to have time relaxed. More newspapers and cups of coffee. But the limits return, and that’s a good thing, too. School starts again for Beangirl and also the Spouse. And we’re moving. Again. Life reshuffled into boxes, lock the door, drop off the key, travel a ways and start again. This time, the move is in the same city, and schools and church and work stay the same. The neighbours will change, and the grocery store, too. We will be spending longer in transit, but less on rent. I’m not sure how long we will be in the new place – life as always is up in the air. But unlike the student digs where we are now, we’ve chosen this apartment. There are big windows. I will be able to watch the weather from bed.
I’m not sure why life seems so nomadic right now. A season or two here and then off to other hunting grounds. Of course, we’ve chosen this path for our own small family, more or less. But it seems that many people are like us, living our lives in chunks, anticipating the next step. Maybe it’s the stage of life – early thirties angst at settling down or something. Angst probably isn’t the right word. But there’s a restlessness. I wonder if my own parents went through this, two kids in, figuring out career and family and home. I never wondered that as a child. It seemed that adults make decisions based on the best way to go. They just know. Now, I’m not so sure.
And I came across a line in a Wendell Berry poem. Here it is for you. (And maybe for me, too.)
By expenditure of hope,
Intelligence, and work,
You think you have it fixed.
It is unfixed by rule.
Within the darkness, all
Is being changed, and you
Also will be changed.
from Sabbath 1998
It is good to read poems as the year begins. Because it does begin, and we set about making our world anew, listening for answers, setting our limits and trying to help our kids do the same.
Right then, green butterfly it is.
