I played hooky from work yesterday. It was one of those late-spring mornings that beckoned, all blue skies and sweet lilac air. The boys were crabby and craving attention, and I wasn’t making much headway on my deadlines anyway. So we grabbed hats and sunscreen and headed out for a hike on a trail near our home.
Our destination: a modest cave that doesn’t even warrant a name. At its entrance is a faded sign that reads simply, “Cave.” But for a three-year-old, it was magic.
Graham packed his little blue backpack with a flashlight and a snack. “Mama, do you think bears like fruit snacks?”
We explored the cave, barely big enough for a grown-up person to stand up in. To Graham’s simultaneous disappointment and relief, we didn’t find any bears. But along the way, we did see butterflies and bugs, ducks and dandelions, sticks and squirrels.
As we headed home, I thought about Mary Oliver’s poem “The Summer Day”:
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
Mary Oliver
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?
As I looked in the rearview mirror at the boys nodding off in their car seats, it occurred to me:
Who better than a toddler to help me relearn how to pay attention?
Who better than a person under three feet to show me how to fall down into the grass?
Who better than a baby with leg rolls and a solitary cheek dimple to show me what it looks like to be idle and blessed?
Parenthood has revealed to me that everything does indeed die at last, and too soon—the baby’s propensity to giggle uproariously before the tickle even lands, the look of milk-drunk bliss on his face after he eats, the way he rests his right hand under his head when he sleeps. The toddler’s ability to create a world where Toy Story characters pretend to be lions who also happen to be fighting a fire; the way he tells Milo daily, “I love you so much, little bwother. I’m going to keep you.”
And it hits me: We will never have a summer when they’re three-and-a-half and six-months-old again. We have this one wild and precious summer. What is it we plan to do with it?
If there’s a common refrain to the parenting advice I hear, it’s this: Enjoy it, because it goes fast. I’m always left a little stymied by these words. Because when you have little people in your life, the momentum is always pulsing forward. There’s no pausing, no slowing down, no going back. How do you stop a speeding locomotive whose brakes have been disabled? How do you hold back a cascading waterfall with your bare hands?
I don’t know how to slow time down. I only know how to slow myself down.
And so this summer we will go on hikes in the woods. We will shine our flashlights into caves like the mighty bear hunters we are. We will flagrantly disregard our phones, our deadlines, our dirty toilets, our drive for productivity, our tyrannical to-do lists. We will kneel in the grass. We will collect sticks. We will look for butterflies. We will fail. And we will find the grace to try again.
So if you are looking for me on a summer day, you just may find me strolling through a field, a child in each arm.
Won’t you join me?
***
Work is not always required. . . . There is such a thing as sacred idleness, the cultivation of which is now fearfully neglected.
George MacDonald
Stephanie, this was such a delight to read! I love that you took the day to play with the boys. What fun! This picture is the BEST!!
Thanks, Susie! Hooray for two boys. 🙂
Yes! Yes! Yes! Such an important thing. Go find those bugs and bears and butterflies! Actually, here is a poem that I wrote after the summer that I realized we didn’t use a single bug jar. Chase those bugs while you can!!! Chase them well, my friend.
Empty Bug Jars
I found my box of empty jars, from when my boys were young.
A brush of dust, a ream of rust. I sighed; my heart unstrung.
Stacked all helter-skelter, with holes poked in the lids.
Home to centipedes, pill bugs, and singing katydids.
I’d learned to be prepared when they pounded up the stairs,
Out of breath and dancing, like they’d just seen “fifty bears.”
The kitchen echoed with their shouts, “Come and see this, Mom!”
Was it a grasshopper or beetle or a newt that they named Brahm?
They’d yell for me to come and look, hands cupped around their prize.
We’d gather close together, a sparkle in their eyes.
I’d hand them each a bug jar and remind them of our rule.
Twenty-four hours in our house, and then back to wood or pool.
A handful of green grass, tucked lovingly inside,
Made a cozy sanctuary, in which a bug could hide.
A shiny rock for sunning and a stick for it to climb.
That jar was toted all about, until it was bedtime.
Then propped up by a bunkbed, their bugs would watch them sleep.
When morning came, we’d let them go, to freedom they would creep.
My box of jars sat empty, though summer had come and gone.
Catching bugs had been replaced, by football on the lawn.
Board game nights with Dad and paintball wars with friends,
Cross-country meets, games of bump, shooting zombies on weekends.
As I threw out all my bug jars, I thanked God I’d taken time,
For every snake and stinkbug and bright faces smeared with grime.
Those boyish years are fleeting, so relish every one.
Admire each tiny creature, be a part of all the fun.
These tall teens delight me, full of sarcasm and snark.
Driving for the first time, trying to parallel park.
I trade my jars for video games and try not to be undone.
I toss the last … then snatch it back. I think I’ll keep just one.
There will be a day when little feet come running back to me.
“Grandma, Grandma, what’s this bug?” and of course I’ll go and see.
I’ll kiss their dusty heads and give each child a quick squeeze.
“Do you have a bug jar? Grab it, Grandma, please?”
Okay, I’m wiping tears! Beautiful poem. “Those boyish years are fleeting, so relish every one.” Thanks for the good words.
Loved this post, Stephanie. Looking at photos of you with your beautiful sons is such cause for praise in every way, knowing the journey you and Daniel went through as you awaited their arrival. I am still learning that it’s OK to embrace sacred idleness, even at 68. I hope these posts will be bound into a new book one day.
Thanks, Maggie, for your consistent encouragement! So grateful for you.