Time is a game played beautifully by children (Heraclitus)
There are a few things that can be said about our yard. An English garden it is not. Prim and proper either. What would we do with all of that? Could an English garden accommodate a –build-your-own castle? A clay mining operation (which is needed for the castle of course) or a jousting arena? I doubt it.
Granted, the castle in the back yard is in ruins. There were two at some point but they morphed into one. Why two, you may ask. Well, because two (little) people at some point in time thought to lay siege on each other’s castle by catapulting stones. When you’re a boy in love with the knight times, it makes all the sense the in the world.
Then, there’s jousting. It takes place in the vicinity of the castle, and it is done with much gusto on a bike instead of a horse and against a tin garbage can donned with a shield and a waiting lance. Noblesse oblige. The laundry line gets in the way but then again, no knight can become a proper one without a few good challenges. Such as clothes lines and mom’s raised beds.
Speaking of raised beds and gardening. There’s remnants of both, despite dogs and knights. How many gardeners can brag about finding knight-in-training hand prints among emerging bean plants? Or a puppy with a tell-tale dirty nose? Honestly, I think the beans are going to lose. Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The tour continues with the clay mine site. It has a ramp leading into the ‘processing area’ and back in its heyday the mine cart was bustling up and down the small hill with an enviable clickety-clack. Alas, the cart is now a relic of the old flourishing days of backyard mining. Strangely similar to some area of British Columbia if you think about it.
That homeschooling allows for unrestricted exploration of preferred subjects such as British Columbia history in particular may have had something to do with the boys’ mining forays too. The gold in our case was muck though. Lots of it.
If it means boys playing for hours though, knee deep in both muck and joy and laughing all the way to the sky and back, so be it. As for life beyond muck, there is lots of it. There are shelters being built, expeditions being carried to corners of the world (umm, yard) you’ve never heard of and on sunny crisp morning there are reading snuggles. Ants crawl on our feet, ticklish and curious, and we do not mind because they have just as much right to be there as we do. Possibly more.
In the front yard, the big tree (a silver maple we suppose) fulfills its many duties with utmost dignity. It holds a swing that has taught the boys more about gravity than any manual could, it invites to climbing and bird viewing, and it reminds us of the seasons. Gratefulness and time measured in leaves falling to the ground in the fall and buds bursting in the spring. An ideal time keeper.
As for the garden… It may or may not make it this year. Much of it this has retreated to large pots because of the waves of enthusiasm and creativity sweeping through the yard at any given time. I am not about to stop any of it though. You see, all of this happens but once in a lifetime and if I let it live as it might, the boys will stay just as they are for a while. Just boys, silly and covered in muck, never mind the foot prints on the kitchen floor. Backyard (and beyond) adventures await and if enough adventures happen then there is no need to ever say ‘Mom, can I stay a kid forever?…’ Because they will.
I have a fresh cup of coffee and the ‘to do’ list I left on my desk last night clearly states that I should attend to my article on stroke and depression. I dawdle instead.
That is what I can give to my boys. Time together is how I craft it for them, with them, and there is no guarantees either but faith, blind faith that the tree we nurture together will grow to have strong roots and a crown large enough to provide shade when needed – for them, for those they love, for those who need it when they need it. Faith that their hearts will never harden to refuse shade to those who ask for it.
I give big brother a quarter cup of coffee or so and the steam draws out laughter, stories, gazes averted but souls pushing closer to each other as uneasy topics nestle their elbows in between the two of us; we squeeze them a bit just to show they have nothing on us. Playing invincible? I used to. Now I play fair: sometimes life is overwhelming. My growing boy needs to know that, as he’s leaving childhood behind to enter the world that makes no sense at times but fills us with the kind of longing that keeps up going for seconds every day and every day after that.
For Mother’s Day just a week or so ago I got hugs, smiles and a wasp nest found in some sun-drenched woods. Cards made by them, adding to a pile that will one day become a framed expose of love bits. Cannot think of better gifts. Worthiness.
Today reminds of the truth we so often forget… The day is all we have, the chance to make it count renewed each day. On any given day, we catch wisps of hope from wherever we can find them and hurry to unravel strands of despair, crushing them as we strive to find our way through shadows and refusing to give in to fear and hatred, because meaning is never to be found in places where they exist.
It’s only fitting that the robin comes flying by the side of the car as I drive slowly after dropping off little boy for Forest School. It is March 8, and growing up meant Mother’s Day. No bells and whistles, no marketing campaigns or Hallmark cards, just carefully hand drawn cards, mostly with snowdrops because I loved to draw them and they matched the small bouquet in my hand.
Where I sit by the side of the road there’s fresh bold new blades of grass, so green they look surreal, each carrying gifts of morning dew. That’s what the day is about to me. Life.
Today is not about politics but about finding the space and time to see. Today is about saying ‘Thank you’ to my Mom, remembering what vulnerability and strength look like, put them back in my satchel as I carry on with the journey and telling my boys:
On Tuesdays we take it to the hills. It is Forest School day for the little guy, and most days find us on one of the hills around Kamloops. Yesterday we were Kenna Cartwright. Snow was coming down hard in big clumps.
The moral of the story is…? Graciousness is not my strongest attribute. Nor is remembering to be mindful of the flitting moments of magic. There is hope though. Coming around to the place of seeing it as it should’ve been… Being human, aches and pains and grumbling included, is inescapable. Remembering that we are, as humans, privy to magic, is too easy to forget at times… that is though, what makes it all that much more precious.
The boys and I used to play a game. If you could have one wish… Or three. What would you wish for? One of mine was always ‘that there is enough kindness in the world’. The boys would smile and tilt their heads.
There is nothing scarier or more upsetting for a parent than to feel helpless as he or she watch their child struggle with something they do not have the key to solve.