Read A Book?

Until I get a nicer one, I'm now using a cheap old bookcase as my bedside table, or nightstand, or what have you. We have a pretty high-off-the-floor bed and regular bedside tables are too short. But more to the point, I have books by my bed so it made sense to me to have a bookcase by my bed. I need shelves.

As I've been lying on my bed the past few days (I'm up and about now-hallelujah!) I've been looking at the first set of books in the shelf that I want to finish. But I didn't do any reading.

I've always defined myself as a reader. Nothing I like better than getting lost in a good book, whether because of the story or because of the way it gets me thinking. But it has been a long while since that's happened. How did I get so busy that I no longer read?

Wait a minute, I DO read. I read a lot, every day. I read snippets of things on the internet.

And today, when I pulled out a book to finish reading, I discovered that I have something of the Sesame Street Syndrome. You know? That short attention span thing that they've discovered kids, who watch SS, seem to have because of the short snippets? I have that now! I kept wanting to be done with the book! I'd read long enough. You know, about 2 minutes. And I wasn't even close to finishing a chapter! And I was getting fidgety.

This, my friends, is a problem to me. And the only way to overcome it was to keep at it. So I did.

I took a few deep breaths. I read in a few different locations. But I finished the book.

I need to do more book reading...

For The Beauty Of The Earth

I've been doing a lot of thinking.

I've been thinking about our purpose on this earth; thinking about the gifts of life and agency; thinking about the difference between happiness and joy; thinking about what matters and what does not and which I'm giving my energy to.

As mother of younger children I read an article which set me to thinking. This article talked about the gap that usually occurs between generations regarding values and beliefs. I read that parents shouldn't just assume that their children are going to automatically take their parent's value system as their own. I couldn't imagine this would be true! When every part of the day and night was full of our value system, when everything I tried to do with and for my children spoke our value system, how could they not know and understand? 

Dang. I didn't think enough about one thing. That gift of life called "agency".

While these thoughts-and many others-have been swirling around in my head, I read the book The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck. I had never read this book all the way through, and never as a 53 year old mother. 

This is what stood out to me from this book:

Our children won't necessarily adopt our value system as their own, even if they've seen us sacrifice for and work and LIVE that value system their whole lives. There isn't an automatic transferral.

hummmm...

What is it that causes some children to automatically walk into their adult lives with the things they've been taught deeply rooted in them and other children to not? Why are some children more easily swayed by the winds of change? Does birth order really matter? What about the space between children? How much of it is just the kind of spirits they came with? How do I, as a mother who wiped away tears and cleaned up blood and tried to always have a hug and a you-can-do-it cheer ready, how do I stand by, and let a child figuratively run out onto a busy highway, without jumping up and down and yelling "Stop! Stop! You're going to get hurt!!" Do I really have to let them get so scratched up?

I guess I do. That agency thing.

I just hope they know that they will always be able to come home for a rest and a mother-hug, there will always be a place for them in my heart and home. I know I can't fix all the hurts the way I once was able to do, but if my arms wrapped around any one of my children can make a difference at any time then I'll do that. I've always been a somewhat ferocious-mother-bear-with-her-claws-out when I sensed any of my children were in danger, and I'm finding that hasn't changed even as they start moving into adulthood.

It is a hard thing to be a mother bear.