Oh Right, I Have No Idea What’s Going On
So Ax is at the duck pond with his father feeding the ducks the Organic Duck and Small Wildlife Blend duck food Mike got to take on these outings when a little girl in pink pants, French braids, and bare feet comes over and says to Ax, “The turtles like broccoli better than duck food.” “Oh,” Ax says, intrigued.
“Here,” she says, handing him a broccoli stalk, “Shred it like this so they can eat it better.”
Ax stops scattering the duck feed he keeps in his special red duck feed fanny pack to master the shredding of broccoli per this strange, yet captivating, girl’s instructions.
“That’s right, shred it,” she encourages him.
“Got it,” he says. They feed turtles shredded broccoli for a while and then she runs for a tree, Ax running behind her. She’s halfway up the tree, climbing barefooted like a monkey, or rather, like a super-cool little girl, and Ax calls up to her, “Ummm, that looks kind of dangerous. Maybe you shouldn’t be up there?”
In response she swings her legs over a tree branch and hangs upside-down, arms stretched out long, gazing at him. “Whee,” she says.
He giggles nervously, “Uhh …. I don’t know about that,” he says, terrified yet deeply in love.
The two of them proceed to frolic around the park for the next several hours, pecking at each other, making suggestions, offering advice, corrections, and feedback while they engage in a variety of critical projects such as rock/gem collection, hide-and-seek with ducks, random chasing of random items, pretend cat family, don’t-fall-in-the-pond-but-get-real-close, and, Ax’s current favorite: emergency rescue of imaginary imperiled folk.
They receive each other’s input graciously. They welcome it, these once-strangers now bonded in their common causes, their mutual goals. They are open to each other, sensing one another’s benevolence, that the input comes from a desire to enhance each other’s experience rather than control it.
I don’t know. I’m baffled by the subtleties of human interaction. Sometimes, it seems, it is okay, very okay, even generous and lovely and connecting, to give what could be characterized as advice. Sometimes it’s not. Yet again I find myself in that uncomfortable place of having to calibrate myself to something less than all-or-nothing, or maybe more than that. To have, as Coach Kim would say, “gears and wheels.”
I could choose to be a bit more fluid than all-or-nothing to squeeze what there is to be squeezed out of this life. Or to simply stop squeezing and enjoy what there is to be enjoyed. Yes. That one. Right. Being. Trusting. Letting it in, slowing down, noticing, breathing. Yes, breathing. Messing up, apologizing, forgiving whoever there is to forgive, even myself, even that thing, and getting back up and trying again. Here’s to a whole new day. Another chance. What a gift.