Stuffed Animals and Storm Clouds and Catnip Oh My

Today will be Ax’s eleventh day of kindergarten. He is supposed to bring a stuffed animal to school that is small enough to sit on his desk for the week. The stuffed animals are going to have a weeklong slumber party and then on Friday there will be a stuffed animal parade. I am stoked. A stuffed animal parade is exactly what I need this week. “Ax, tomorrow you get to bring a stuffed animal to school,” I told him last night.

“Will it get to sleep over?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Yayyyy!” he said. I’m pretty sure he knew the answer before I gave it.

I definitely prefer thinking about stuffed animal parades and bagels with cream cheese and jelly and our cat Cleo’s catnip supply than a lot of other stuff. But I haven’t told myself it’s okay to rest fully in this pretty, peaceful, happy world I’m so lucky to have landed in. There’s a storm cloud looming out there, and I look at it from time to time, a lot of the time, and I even go and put myself in its shade and then feel troubled by the fact that I feel darker, heavier, sad, scared, angry.

It’s a balance perhaps, again. Balance, which historically has not been my forte, is what’s called for right now, for me. I have to live my values. I cannot sit and watch the rain come down over there and do nothing.

And I cannot go too deeply into the storm and lose sight of the light that is all around me. The stuffed animal parades and underwater tea parties and pillow fights and snuggles. Those count too. I wonder if I will ever be able to fight the darkness and still live in the light. I’ll find out. I’m going to keep going. Time to pack a lunch.