The Life of a Leaf

In high school, one of my teachers observed that most people she knew were either leaves floating idly along the river of life or motorboats with speed, direction, and purpose. I used to think that was a motorboat, but I was wrong. I'm a leaf.

Tonight, my kids and I were going through some photo albums, and a realization hit me. Most of my life, so many of my favorite memories are just products of chance. Jobs that I've taken, places I've visited, people I've met... They've all been strange, random twists of fate.

I recall that I had a plan once long ago, but it was derailed, and I never bothered to make a new one. Since Baby #3 was born, I don't think I've ever been able to stick to a plan that extended later than dinnertime.

My husband -- I met him through a bizarre chance of fate. He didn't even live in the same city, but his mother and I worked at the same school. He was there to visit her, and I bumped into them in the teacher's lounge because I was changing to go running. That may sound pretty normal, but I never run. Never. Ever. Not for fires, not for shoe sales, not for anything... I was on a train in Paris once when we got a bomb threat. Sirens were blaring; the gendarme were whizzing through the cars to evacuate us. I didn't even break into a trot. What in the world possessed me to go running that day, that one day of the year that I would meet him? Any other day, I would've hopped into my car parked near my classroom and missed him altogether. As I recall, I didn't even like him at the moment, but here we are, nearly two decades later.

Those oft-quoted lines from Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" come to mind:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Most people infer that the road less traveled is the superior one, but I'm not so sure. Sometimes, I think that's just an elegant way to say "I've made a hu-u-u-u-u-ge mistake."

My father has wisely stated, "A lot of things could've been, but I don't bother thinking about them because there's no point." Sadly, I lack his placid temperament, and I often wonder what life might have been if I'd stuck to a definite plan. Easier? More focused? More profitable? For sure, I'd be doing something more productive than posting blog entries between bouts of ring-around-the-rosies.

On the other hand, if I'd been more goal-oriented, I'd have missed out on some of the best memories I have, like karaoke-singing on the Champs Elysees and "The Lebanese Detective" (that's another post maybe). Heck, two of my children were complete surprises, and I can't imagine life without them.  These memories, these people that have come in and out of my life -- a motorboat would've missed them, but they really are the details that make all the difference.

Love and Puke

It's official. My daughter is the world's heaviest sleeper.

Last night, I awoke to a horrible retching sound and found Babygirl lying on her back, in bed, puking up bucketfuls. I was terrified that she might choke, but she never even woke up. She just continued sleeping. Even when I roused her, she barely opened her eyes, and she was still half asleep when I put her in the bath.

Of course, while she was soundly in bed within seconds of her bath, I couldn't sleep the rest of the night. Between cleaning sheets, floors, tubs, toilets, sinks and a general insomnia, I've had hardly forty winks since yesterday.

I suppose I got two lessons out of this. The most obvious one is that mom is always the one who deals with dirty stuff in the middle of the night. The other lesson took me a bit more time to figure out.

There was vomit in Babygirl's hair, on her face, all over her body. She was swimming in it, completely oblivious, and unable to help herself. Although I tried to be as gentle as possible and to keep her comfortable, she looked so pathétique shivering in in the bathtub, vomit swirling around her feet and encrusting her small body. My heart was moved with pity for her as I bathed her tiny shoulders and washed the puke out of her hair.

It seems obvious that one would feel compassionate toward a sick child. The truth, though, is that she stank so much I thought I would be sick, too. Every muscle in my body wanted to run away and leave her in the tub! (How is that for a maternal instinct?) It's only love that made me stay.

So I've kind of taken the long way around to my point, but here it is. Lately, I've seen a lot of young girls (and boys, for that matter) in church, on the streets, in the media, etc. who are metaphorically covered in puke. They've made some really bad choices and have been met by one of two responses. Either, society (in the name of love) castigates them until they can adhere to a certain standard of acceptability. Or it views them (in the name of love) with a lack of involvement that kindly casts no judgment at all, but this kindness leaves them to follow a path of self-destruction.

Real love, I think, is somewhere in the middle. Indulge me for a moment if I compare love to a stray dog. Would Love see a stray and leave him outside the door until it could clean itself up? No, that would be harsh. Would Love drown a stray to get rid of its ticks? Of course not, that would be unreasonable. But neither would Love adopt a stray and leave it with all its fleas and bad habits. That would be foolish and ultimately untenable. So it saddens me to see young people who are being destroyed by these two extreme responses. There are the well-intentioned who nitpick at and punish young people until they drown in criticism, and there are the well-intentioned who don't want young people to "feel bad" so they approve of everything. But nobody is doing these kids any favors. The critic loves his own opinion. The "tolerant" person loves creating a persona of benevolence. Nobody is truly loving these kids.

Anyway, Babygirl just woke up, and I see I missed some icky spots in the dim lighting last night. So we're off for another bath, but I leave you with these words from C.S. Lewis who always says everything a hundred times better than I could ever hope to.

Love, in its own nature, demands the perfecting of the beloved; that the mere 'kindness' which tolerates anything except suffering in its object is, in that respect, at the opposite pole from Love. When we fall in love with a woman, do we cease to care whether she is clean or dirty, fair or foul? Do we not rather then first begin to care? Does any woman regard it as a sign of love in a man that he neither knows nor cares how she is looking? Love may, indeed, love the beloved when her beauty is lost: but not because it is lost. Love may forgive all infirmities and love still in spite of them: but Love cannot cease to will their removal... Of all powers, he forgives most, but he condones least: he is pleased with little, but demands all. 

from the Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis

The Smell of Happiness

Another entry I forgot to post. Oops.

The Arbor Day Foundation sent me some free forsythia with my order of dwarf cherries. So despite having a broken leg, I dared to disobey doctor's orders and take up a shovel. In the middle of planting, I noticed a tree that I couldn't name.

Recently, identifying neighborhood flora has become something of an obsession with me. I'm trying to figure out what kind of forage is available for the bees month-by-month. So naturally, I clipped a twig and went to The Arbor Day's online field guide.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find it in the guide. Maybe it was because the leaves were still too small, but I had trouble answering the guide questions.¹ I was about to give up when I happened to peel the bark and a whiff of root beer and menthol surprised my nose. It wasn't sassafras, because I'd know those mitten-like/dinosaur-print shaped leaves anywhere.

Sassafras illustration from Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sassafras

No, it was sweet birch, and its fragrance hinted at some sunny activity in the fringes of my memory. I don't know what it is -- maybe a  picnic, a walk in the woods, I don't know. I can't remember exactly what happened, but I know this secret scent of a nearly forgotten delight. It's there "filling me up with rainbows" to borrow an expression from my son. It reminds me of the description of Wendy's mother from Peter Pan.

“She was a lovely lady, with a romantic mind and such a sweet mocking mouth. Her romantic mind was like the tiny boxes, one within the other, that come from the puzzling East, however many you discover there is always one more; and her sweet mocking mouth had one kiss on it that Wendy could never get, though there it was, perfectly conspicuous in the right-hand corner.”

For a few weeks, the memory (or lack of it) nagged and nagged at me. I couldn't place it. Couldn't file it away neatly where it should go. It was just there, just out of reach -- fresh and green, wayward and flighty. But now I've come to prefer it that way.

At the risk of sounding like sour grapes, maybe the memory isn't so great after all, or it might be more indelibly printed into my brain. However, whatever it is, I've begun to think that recall might come too close to possession or cataloguing. Trying to hold on to it or bring it up at beck and call might make the magic fly away like Peter Pan. As it is, I'm happy to let myself be beautifully, enchantedly happy that something this wonderful exists.
____________________

¹ If you were wondering why the leaves were so small when we're already into summer, it's because I started this post back in May. Of course, the leaves are full-size now.