Can you sense the big “however” coming? The flip side of full days and busy children are tired, whiny hours in the late afternoon and evening, a dearth of naps for the 3-year-old and a complete absence of free time for mom and dad. As the week progressed I felt my internal strings tighten and twang with each late-afternoon temper tantrum; I looked at my unread book with longing, and managed to record only four or five sentences in my journal.
As wrinkles line up to decorate my face I crave free time and quiet more than diamonds, more than chocolate, almost more than a workout (cheating - is actually free time!). It seems that the only way to refill my store of energy is to take time to sort through my thoughts and emotions, take deep breaths, and indulge flights of fancy and occasionally philosophy. In the one evening I did find time to read my book, I came across this revealing quote:
“Wasn’t it terrible that after all the work one put into finding a person to spend one’s life with, after making a family with that person, even in spite of missing that person, as Amit missed Megan night after night, that solitude was what one relished most, the only thing that, even in fleeting diminished doses, kept one sane?” - From “A Choice of Accommodations,” Jhumpa Lahiri in Unaccustomed Earth, (Vintage Contemporaries, 2008).
When I read this paragraph I knew in my bones that Ms. Lahiri was a parent as well as an accomplished writer (true - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jhumpa_Lahiri). The joys of solitude are hard to appreciate when one is single, with solitude to spare, or when a couple is childless, with ordered home and rooms of silence. After spending a charged week with three children and a spouse that I love dearly and would, in fact, die for, I am enjoying a spellbinding morning by myself, appreciating the time with my family only in the bas-relief of my time alone.
In contrast, the one thought I managed to record in my journal over our vacation was a sentence about the movie “Into the Wild” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_the_Wild). I watched the film the night before we left for San Diego and it moved me deeply. The protagonist, a gifted young man named Christopher McCandless, flees a painful past and constrictions of modern society through an epic road trip, and finally, a dramatic stay in an abandoned bus in the Alaskan wilds. The recorded description of the film – which I read prior to watching - notes that the young man’s trip is doomed, so I watched scene after scene, increasingly enthralled with the young man and ever more reluctant to watch his demise. Toward the end of the film, McCandless writes in his own journal (which was recovered by moose hunters) something to the effect that happiness is only worthwhile when shared. He comes to the realization too late to share the joy of new experiences with friends and loved ones, and forfeits the opportunity to reattempt his life with this new lens.
As with anything in life, then, balance would seem to represent the key to peace. Time spent with loved ones, sharing new thoughts and experiences and giving of oneself, balanced by time alone in meditation and reflection. These are not new thoughts, but as I process the reality of life with three children, pursuing a path to peace and self-mastery, the awareness feels new every day, immensely valuable and precious.
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