Hold My Hand

Children hold hands.  They just do.  As I walk the children to school this morning, I notice how many of us hold hands naturally.  I wish we were all doing it.

When do we stop?  When did we become so self-conscious? 

Normally, we might hold hands to pray, to pull someone to safety, to keep our balance, to lead someone along, or to keep together in a crowd.

Whatever the case, when my hand rests in yours, it says, "I'm here with you."  It's a mark of belonging, of protection, and of love.

Maybe in other cultures, in other communities, hand-holding remains common and abundant, natural and obvious.  But here, I wonder if we aren't making physical gestures of belonging, protection, and love enough.

I watch my daughter enter her new kindergarten class.  Complete strangers!  She finds a little girl (a pony tail and sparkly sandals) who also likes turtles and Polly Pocket, and as I watch them interact, I see that smile and movement together that signifies I found you; I see you; I like you. 

When it's time to circle up on the carpet with the teacher, those two hold hands.  How natural, how obvious.

Living with flair means I hold a hand.  Could I do it?  Could I walk hand in hand with neighbors, colleagues, friends and not just my children?  Here, take my hand.

I found you; I see you; I like you.


(Photo "Hold My Hand" courtesy of Elizabeth Ann Colette)

That Hilarious Staples Commercial

There's a hilarious Staples commercial that never fails to make me laugh.  You know, the one with the father dancing in the aisle saying, "You're going back!"  Meanwhile, the children sulk.  The commercial captures that end-of-summer mood so pervasive among parents right about now.  However, this particular commercial misinterprets the attitude of most children in my community.

Yesterday, for example, a little boy rushed over to me to describe his backpack and school supplies (down to the color of the pencil grips and the size of the erasers).

These children are ready.  

I keep asking my daughters if they want to go to the pool, and my oldest says, "Mom, I'm done with summer.  I have to sharpen all these pencils and arrange my erasers."

At this very moment, I'm observing a beautiful mound of pencil shavings on the carpet.  I pull out her eraser pack and smell the soft pink rubber.  Could someone bottle the smell of new eraser and pencil shavings?  Could we market room spray?  Potpourri?  Yankee Candles called "Back to School"?

I'd buy it all.

My youngest (the one I just brought home from the hospital in that little hat the size of my palm, the one who just started walking, who just slept through the night) has her pencil case ready.  Her purple backpack is by the door.  She'll hardly sleep tonight because tomorrow marks the day it all begins.  She will learn marvelous and life-changing things in kindergarten. 

I want to keep this momentum going all our lives; returning to school--that community of curiosity, wonder, complexity, and beauty--should always be this exciting.  The anticipation of learning, amplified a thousand times in the heart of a 5 year old, might challenge us all to greet the day with that same enthusiasm.

We'll have not one pencil but a dozen in multiple colors.  We'll have our backpacks by the door.  We'll hardly sleep tonight because of how great tomorrow will be.

Living with flair means I'm too excited to sleep because of what I'll learn and friends I'll meet tomorrow.

How I Detangle My Life

Before church this morning, I participate in a daily morning ritual with my daughters:  I detangle their hair.

This is not fun ever.  We employ various products, special brushes, and gentle mother-strokes to get their hair orderly and smooth.  They used to cry and shout about this.  Now, they resign themselves to it, clenching their jaws, staring stoic into the mirror to endure the process. 

As I'm brushing and comforting, I wonder about this process. Tangle, as a verb, means to mix together in a confused mass.  The verb actually approximates "confuse" more than any other verb.  Confusion refers to "the state of being mixed or blended so as to produce indistinctness or error; indistinct combination; disorder; tumult."

As I think more about tangles and confusion, I think about my own mind.  If confusion results from blending what shouldn't be blended--of mixing up what doesn't go together--then something about peace, order, and enlightenment involves separating out parts.

In the past, confusion always resulted when my emotions disagreed with the truth of what should be or should happen.  My feelings clouded a topic, tangled up the truth of a situation, and made a mess in my head.  I had to part my feelings from what was actually true. 

Working to separate tangles reminds me to do the work of parting my emotions from the truth regarding a situation.  Just because it's appealing to my emotions doesn't mean this or that action is right.  And just because I don't want to do something or it's painful doesn't mean it's wrong. 

As we leave for church, I'm thankful for a truth outside of my own perceptions and my own feelings.  I read the Bible and learn the commands of God because they tell me what is true and right about my life and my interactions with others.  I can make decisions, plan a course, leave a situation, or enter a new one based on ancient (but so current) wisdom. 

It's the ultimate detangler.