A moment of peace

I woke up today wanting to curl up in a ball and not move. My son was sick (all night long) so I stayed up with him most of the time and today as well, missing classes. Now it seems his illness (or my stress more likely) has culminated in a horrid headache I can't seem to make go away. So I feel like it looks outside, cloudy and overcast, waiting to storm. I found out also that my son had an "incident" a few days ago where he and his friends were throwing crabapples into the street (Why you ask? "To watch them splatter beneath car tires") and that this was in part a reason why my son was sick. You see, he had "accidentally" thrown one and it hit a car and the driver pulled over and asked for his phone number and name and told him that she might call the police on him otherwise. So it seems his stress over this has made him sick. Well, listening to him made me think about all the stupid things I did as a child and after our discussion I could tell he was afraid and very very sorry. So we just talked. He has been hearing it seems from other students and teachers about this place that "bad kids" go to called "juvenile hall" and he is thinking that he is one of these kids and that he might go there. It makes me very angry sometimes that he "learns" so much from other kids but at the same time, I am grateful he comes to discuss these things with me because then we can get to the heart of the problems.
Anyhow, he sat today and cried that he was afraid he was going to be taken away and I said, you know, every human being does something stupid. The really important thing is not to do the same stupid thing again and to learn from your mistakes. I told him about the time when I was young (younger than he is) and how I accidentally set a vase of flowers on fire. Why you might ask? Well, I was wondering if they'd burn. They did. (Imagine that) and so I panicked and threw them into the toilet and then thought that if I just put them back on the toilet, no one would notice they'd burned. He agreed with me that that was pretty stupid. :)
So...we talked for awhile and it occured to me that parents are as much afraid of "failing" at parenting as children are of "failing" their parents'/school's/life's/friends' expectations. It is amusing that so much in life is put into such black and white catagories: success or failure. Aren't we so much more than (to quote the movie again) the sum of all of our parts? Maybe we shouldn't assume that adults have all the answers (most don't, ask any adult!) or that children's answers could never be as wise as that offered by an adult. I don't know. Today, I woke up feeling absolute hatred at having to get up at all. But by this afternoon, I feel better and so does he (which is great). I think the simplest things can be more important than the things that we learn to measure ourselves by. For example, what is going to be more important to him? That his mother got good grades in school or that one time, when he'd had a most terrible day, she made him hot chocolate and they played marbles and laughed, despite both being sick?

I consider him a teacher, even though he's only nine. He always teaches me to rethink how I see the world and my "importance" in it. It is more important to me to listen to him (even though I don't always succeed at this noble endeavor) and to genuinely listen rather than be the one to always talk. I mean think about it, if we truly listened to one another, what would become of the psychiatric/counseling/self-help industry anyway? They charge an AWFUL lot of money just to spend time listening to you (and you're usually complaining, as most people so rarely talk about the things that bring them joy with absolute strangers). Anyhow, I bought my son a book today written by Thich Nhat Hahn called "A pebble for your pocket" and it is a basic introduction to Buddhist practice and Buddhism itself designed to be read by children. What I love about Thich Nhat Hahn's work is that he always reminds readers that anyone can practice Buddhism and this doesn't mean you are no longer a Christian, Muslim, Jew etc. etc. It is a practice, not perfection. That to me is really important and quite wise. One of my favorite teachings in the book is called "Today's Day" and it reads:
We have all sorts of special days. There is a special day to remember fathers. We call it Father's Day. There is a special day to remember mothers. We call it Mother's Day. There is New Year's Day, Peace Day and Earth Day. One day a young person visiting Plum Village said, "Why not declare today as "Today's Day?" And all the children agreed that we should celebrate today and call it "Today's Day."
On this day, Today's Day, we don't think about yesterday, we don't think about tomorrow, we only think about today. Today's Day is when we live happily in the present moment. When we eat, we know we are eating. When we drink water, we are aware that it is water we are drinking. When we walk, we really enjoy each step. When we play, we are really present in our play.
Today is a wonderful day. Today is the most wonderful day. That does not mean that yesterday was not wonderful. But yesterday is already gone. It does not mean that tomorrow will not be wonderful. But tomorrow is not yet here. Today is the only day available to us, today, and we can take good care of it. That is why today is so important--the most important day of our lives." (pg 18).

This is such a simple teaching and yet so difficult. We learn to worry about tomorrow. We learn to fixate and yesterday. We work to have better tomorrows. We try to outdo/correct/change all that was wrong yesterday. But as Thich Nhat Hahn said, today is all we have. Right now is all the time we're guaranteed and if that is wasted running to tomorrow or from yesterday, then we are losing. We are cheating ourselves and those we love out of this moment by focusing on what was or will be. Another of Thich Nhat Hahn's teachings that I enjoy very much is when he explains that "If you want peace, peace is available immediately." This is often difficult to see when you have a toothache, past-due bills, homework that seems unending, work that needs to be done and no one wants to do it. Yet, the point of that saying is to show that peace isn't something to work toward as much as it is the practice of stopping and dropping all of the crap you are so damned and determined to carry. Ever feel like the guy rolling the rock up hill only to watch it fall again? In context with the above teaching, it isn't like he can just stop rolling the rock but if he should practice in a way that allows him to enjoy his work and to realize that he needn't be chained to it, then the chains may still exist but they cannot hold him any longer.

I think about that in relationship to prisons and to stupid ideas such as sending children to places like "juvenile hall." According to my mother, my father wanted to send me to a military school at one point in my life because I simply was "incorrigible." Well, what does that mean exactly? When does a child become so flawed, so "bad" that they cannot be helped? I don't know the answer to that but I do question the logic of labeling a child 'bad' and threatening to send them to a 'bad place' to teach them to be 'good.' How can a bad place teach kids to be good? Does it not instead teach them that they must be bad to be there in the first place? What does prison do to inmates? It dehumanizes. Does stripping a person of their dignity, their privacy, their agency over their own body really teach them respect for the agency/dignity/privacy of others? That seems rather odd to me. Yet that returns you to the argument, well what do you want robbers/rapists/murderers free to roam the streets? No. But explain to me the legitimacy of a system that allows corporate criminals to rob people or murder people without impunity in the name of taxes and war. I think children are far more adept at recognizing and criticizing injustice than adults are. We tend to want to find excuses for things. Answers. Reasons. Justifications. But in this daily life of running from sunrise to sunset, will any of those things matter if you didn't find the time to be alive and to be truly available to those who need your time and attention more than they needed that stupid t.v. or cable or video game system?
I was stunned to learn that one of the exercises the kids in my son's class had to do was talk about what they wished they could afford and most of the answers came back: Plasma t.v.

My friends and I often talk about how odd it is that most kids we know (including our own) want to be entertained. They can't just go to a park and play because that's "boring." They don't want to pretend to be this or that and play that way, it has to be competetive and someone has to win and lose or it is worthless to them. They rarely read unless forced to do so but boy they can recite commercial jingles like prayers and ask for stupid things like a plasma t.v. or an S.U.V.

Adults aren't really all that different. When you can look at the Sunday ads and find images of a surround sound theatre system for $5,000 or if you wanted to go out in "style" you could rent a stretch S.U.V. limo for the night...that is problematic. In the "Leland" film there was an ongoing dialogue between Leland and his juvenile detention teacher about "human nature" and why we feel so easy in using the words "I'm only human" to justify our bad/harmful actions. I was wondering today why we can't have discussions like that. Why don't we just talk to one another and ask, well what does it mean that you're only human? What does it mean that you feel like a "failure?" Where does that fear come from anyway? What does it mean when we as adults say "Well these are just my grown up toys? My adult drink. My right as an adult to do XYZ? What does that say to kids who see what you do and learn whether you like it or not, to more often than not, do what you do rather than what you say?
What will that degree/paper/project/grade/lecture/parking ticket/traffic accident/grocery list/credit card/$70 pair of shoes made by children in China/Bon Sale mean ten years from now? Twenty? Will your children have cared that you bought them $70 shoes when they're thirty? Will they even remember? Or will they remember the time you tried to teach them chess and they learned to beat you? (My son kicks my butt in checkers but I still win at chess!)
Why don't we stop focusing on what this leader or that leader will do for us and ask what we can do for ourselves to make the whole world better for every living creature? Why don't we ask people to share their joys with us, rather than just asking "what's wrong?" I want to know what is it that you brings you the most joy? We all know what brings us down but do we know what brings us joy? I love to cook and I love to make the food that I cook beautiful to the eye as well as the tongue. I want it to be healthy and arranged on a plate like art. I love to share food, especially over good conversation with others. I also enjoy hearing the smile in someone's voice. This happiness don't cost anything and such things bring me just as much joy as reading and even more joy than shopping.

I want to take my son to the ocean, any ocean and let him stand there and marvel at the waves the way I have loved to do for years. I would love to take him around the world so that he could see how people live everywhere and how no one group is any better than anyone else in the grand scheme of daily survival. I hope he continues to question authority especially when it lies to him or causes him harm. Most of all, I am grateful for the gift of today and for the opportunity to spend meaningful time engaging in meaningful conversation with those I love.

May your day be beautiful and filled with love.

peace.