Beautiful Moment
I’m riding home in the car after an afternoon at the everetts – waiting for our “open house” to be over and having lunch and having fun together – and I glance at this late twenties guy driving in the lane next to me.
This guy has a buzzed haircut, leather jacket, crappy buick century from 8 years ago.
You know the type, right? He’s probably listening to something hardcore, about to pull out a cig., disaffected and smarter than his station in his life betrays….
He’s got his armed sprawled over the top of the seat, probably to increase his feeling of angst and remove.
Until he pulls forward and he turns backwards to talk some nonsense to the toddler riding in the carseat behind him. His arm isn’t draped on the back of his seat, but is turned backward over the seat to hold the hand of this child in the back…
And I hadn’t been not liking him for all the stereotypical ways I interpreted his life, but suddenly I loved him for that gesture.
If you’ve done it – you know the painful joy of it – bending your shoulder backwards over a car seat is against the laws of nature (as is, probably, if you think about it, driving a car at all) but the joy of having a very little hand clutch your finger as if it were the only thing that could pull them through the rapidly passing future…
That’s a good thing.
It strikes me as a picture that gets at too much of how I think about my life as a parent right now. I’m careening ahead toward LIFE (!) and all of its demands / opportunities – and I’m hauling my kids forward into my life as an invitation to them. Come with me, be a part of the worlds I’m trying to build. But so often the journey forward and the vehicle we’re taking make it too hard to make meaningful connection with them. But when I do make that connection….well. there aren’t many good words to describe the depth and profoundness of that feeling.
Marcaus’ words about kids have been devastating prophecies that have been great words of truth (and pain) helping me see back into the core of what I hold true (connection / helping / holding / developing ) in the midst of the maelstrom which my life feels like right now. Thanks, man.
May moments of beauty interrupt your day today and leave you devastated and worshipping at the altars of hope and renewal and (always)
Peace~
This guy has a buzzed haircut, leather jacket, crappy buick century from 8 years ago.
You know the type, right? He’s probably listening to something hardcore, about to pull out a cig., disaffected and smarter than his station in his life betrays….
He’s got his armed sprawled over the top of the seat, probably to increase his feeling of angst and remove.
Until he pulls forward and he turns backwards to talk some nonsense to the toddler riding in the carseat behind him. His arm isn’t draped on the back of his seat, but is turned backward over the seat to hold the hand of this child in the back…
And I hadn’t been not liking him for all the stereotypical ways I interpreted his life, but suddenly I loved him for that gesture.
If you’ve done it – you know the painful joy of it – bending your shoulder backwards over a car seat is against the laws of nature (as is, probably, if you think about it, driving a car at all) but the joy of having a very little hand clutch your finger as if it were the only thing that could pull them through the rapidly passing future…
That’s a good thing.
It strikes me as a picture that gets at too much of how I think about my life as a parent right now. I’m careening ahead toward LIFE (!) and all of its demands / opportunities – and I’m hauling my kids forward into my life as an invitation to them. Come with me, be a part of the worlds I’m trying to build. But so often the journey forward and the vehicle we’re taking make it too hard to make meaningful connection with them. But when I do make that connection….well. there aren’t many good words to describe the depth and profoundness of that feeling.
Marcaus’ words about kids have been devastating prophecies that have been great words of truth (and pain) helping me see back into the core of what I hold true (connection / helping / holding / developing ) in the midst of the maelstrom which my life feels like right now. Thanks, man.
May moments of beauty interrupt your day today and leave you devastated and worshipping at the altars of hope and renewal and (always)
Peace~
posted by Redbaerd at 11:16 AM
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