Into Thin Air

Another sweet post from Elizabeth Eilers Sullivan. We are all planting, nurturing something in our lives - enjoy the invitation to recapture yours.  - BTH

Sometimes I worry about not sucking the marrow out of my todays. About how fleeting the young years of my kids truly are even if some days seem long. Sometimes my anxiety creeps up on me that time is moving fast. Way too fast. That when I am at home and busy doing other things that need tending, I am missing the present. The now. And, when my boys call me on it by doubling their efforts to get my attention, when I am there but preoccupied, it is a reminder to me that I have gone too far. The scales are tipped. I am no longer the fulcrum, the grounded center, because I am no longer present. 

The other day I unloaded my younger two boys from the car and watched as they gleefully ran up the walkway, and thought Wow I will miss this. Them. Followed immediately by a second thought that softened that grip on my heart, "But man will I enjoy them still as adults!" Like salve for my soul, I exhaled. 

Parenting is not for the weak of heart. Strength is a necessary ingredient, and not just physical the lifting the carrying, the schlepping, but mental. Mental strength is paramount. How we fill our minds, our perceptions, the words we chose internally and externally shape our days. We have choice and control over what we think. But to have this choice we need to hone an awareness of our own minds and their patterns. This morning I read something about being aware of what we fill our minds with for it lives in our subconscious creating a garden for things to thrive. If our perception, judgement, or thoughts are off, instead of our minds flowering they can easily be filled with weeds. This image captivated me.I might add that it is not just a garden but one with a labyrinth where the more aware we become of our patterning the deeper we can go to the center to increase the healthy thoughts and weed out the unhealthy. 

That is why later this morning when my husband told me that the front tire on my car was low and needed air, I drove to the neighborhood Sinclair Gas Station. As I pulled in I noted the opaque grey of the sky, the clouds covered it like a quilt, a protection keeping me from seeing too far down the horizon line. 

Joe, who owns the station and a distant relative of mine, ambled out. "How are ya?" he proclaimed. 

"I'm good." 

"What's new?"

"Nothing much," I started to reply, then I paused, "It's Kiki's birthday!" I said. 

Kiki was sitting with his broad grin in the back, we were on our way to get his birthday treat he'd bring to school with him. 

"Well, how old are you fella?"

"4!" he chimed in.

Joe was reaching for the air pump and bending to fill the tire and laughed. "Enjoy them, my baby is 50."

"Do you remember when he was four?" I asked. 

"Oh yea, we had loads of fun! I have three boys," he added still laughing. 

He filled my tire with air and smiled. For a moment we coexisted in that thin space of his yesterdays leaking into our todays, his history mingling with my present, a view beyond the cloud coverage. A glimpse into what is planted in his garden, a sacred view into his own mental strength. As my tire was filled up to it's rightful level, I realized how much more even my perspective of the road was now, like I had been driving around lopsided, or not inhaling and exhaling enough air for my own strength. That like the tire I can stand to breathe a little deeper, relax a little more with the awareness of my breath, my thoughts, my words. That this air that creates sounds, words, stories fills my todays. Breath is the one thing that when it comes down to it keeps us in this beautiful physical plane called life. I exhaled at Joe's invitation to enjoy my four year old, knowing that I will still enjoy my four year old when he is 50 and still my child.