Grok

 

March 22, 2021

 

Greetings from the gift,

 A few weeks ago, anticipating my boys’ birthday, I found myself ruminating about their first year or so of life.  And of their barely older sister, toddling around them.  Someone asked me what it was like then, caring for four tiny humans at once and it brought back a surge of memories and a realization I had set aside for many years.

 I remembered how hard we concentrated on every nuance of their development.  Our first baby, our first toddler, our first everything in that tiny girl.  And then her brothers, first of everything all over again, and a riot of other firsts.  And our focus was so fierce, so filled with excitement and fear and happiness and worry and all of it in our bloodstream every waking moment, and even in the fringe of our dreams.

 There were rare moments when they were still.  I would watch them quietly play, or look at books, or crashed into their bedclothes in some unimaginable dream.  Sometimes they would be focused on something, learning and absorbing, fascinated or simply amused, and there is a different light in their eyes.  I think that when you are obsessed with someone’s happiness and wellbeing, that you are rewarded from time to time with these little gifts.

 When you are raising a child, you pay attention in a way that you won’t repeat in the rest of your interactions with people.  It’s not something you seek out, in fact most parents seek relief from it.  It’s not sustainable.  It’s exhausting paying attention at that level, when the child’s need is nearly relentless.

 There were simple days when they were still in our care, but now out of danger, when it was easier to relax, but still necessary to tend to them closely.  That time when they could climb out of their own car seat, but still needed to hold your hand when they crossed the street.  It was possible then to enjoy the experience, without relinquishing the need entirely.

 One of my favorite times was when I would take the four kids on Adventure Walks, in part to be with them (and get ice cream) and in part to offer respite for their mother.   We would walk through the woods and they would ask myriad questions, and we would sit in the grass and explore sticks and clover and ants and beetles and I would tell them stories.  But mostly I would pay attention, notice.  I wasn’t doing it on purpose, it was what we were given in that moment.

 Little by little we release this connection, this mad devotion to another person.  We allow them to be independent of us because it is what nature asks of us, for their sake and ours.  A new relationship takes its place, year by year.  It is still bound in love, seasoned with experiences, new and old.  Until one day the rapt focus that tied you together is a pale memory.

What I thought of a few weeks ago was how intensely alive we are when we are devoting ourselves to another person in the way we need to be with our children. I don’t think I spent much time missing those days, except I have to admit that there was a precious gift brought out that we may have too quickly left behind.

 Yesterday we celebrated birthdays, a cluster of dates that we fitted into one afternoon of cake and food and singing.  It was the first time in months we had seen people in person in our home.  It was a treasured moment.  My children are adults now, and so naturally the dynamic has changed, but I had a glimpse of this powerful connection that we began with, decades ago.  I watched my sons and my daughter, listened, tried to feel that potent focus.  It is hard, but it’s there. 

 My granddaughter, Ila, reminded me of this intensity, in real life, not in memory.  She has just one year with us, so Tim and Katherine are living a different life than they had, or will.  As I held her, and responded to her wants, I got a flicker of my own years in that place of devotion.

 It seems unlikely that in other interactions with adults that we could pay attention to each other with this dedication.  Maybe the dependency is part of the equation.  But perhaps not.  Perhaps we can click into it in small bursts.  I’ve looked for some word to help say what I feel, and this floated up; Robert Heinlein invented the word ‘grok’ in his fiction, fifty years ago.  It’s a jarring word to think and say, but it almost tells what I mean.  In ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’ the word meant ‘to be one with’.  It might feel trite until you remember what it’s like to hold your baby for the first time.  That beautiful burden, the mixture of joy and ache, the sacrifice of your self for another’s joy.

 In the process of raising children we have to devote ourselves to another human.  It means disregarding other distractions, but more important, it requires that we silence whatever noise might threaten to fill our head.  It is more than being present or being aware.  It is pouring ourselves into another person, giving us to them.  Perhaps it is what the poets have called ‘love’ all along. 

 Yesterday, in the tiny moments that puzzled into a day of this, it felt like a celebration of love.  In little ways, we gathered up this energy of devotion, and we poured ourselves into one another.

 We celebrate with song and gifts and food, by exchanging stories or offering prayer, or sometimes simply being with someone so they know.  But there is this other thing, this powerful, magic, electric intensity, that exists in us, waiting to find a place to pour into.  If we are fortunate, and we want it in our lives, we will find places to make this beautiful passion a reality.

 

Hope this finds you seeking,

 David