pool
Thursday, January 21, 2010 at 11:02AM My buddy Jenn and I had packed all morning. Then we had packed all afternoon. Now we were lying in heaps on my empty living room floor, wishing the relief packing team would show up already. Jenn's baby girl came running in the front door in hysterics, pulling at her clothes. "Pooooool!" she screeched, "Pooool!"
Jenn and I raised eyebrows at each other. Pool? We didn't have a pool. I heaved my weary self up off the floor, looked out the windows for our four-year-olds, the usual perpetrators of any unusualness, and saw this:
While we'd been packing, these boys had taken the hose, stripped off to the waist, and filled a garden bed with water in an attempt to make themselves a pool. What they'd ended up with wasn't exactly the chlorinated, sanitary, concrete bowl we usually associate with a pool, but what they did get made them very, very happy.
My usual impulse would be to holler, yank them out of there, hose them off with ice-cold water, and make them swear never to act like such little boys again. But their faces were so happy. They were enjoying the feel of the mud all over their skin, the fun they'd created with their friends, and their excitement over their own cleverness. How could I charge in there and stop them?
So instead I grabbed my camera, and began to capture this beautiful, fragile moment. (I appreciate their willingness to do funny things in bold, color coordinated clothing just as the sun hits that photography sweet spot in the evening. That helps out a lot with my forebearance.)
As I took these photos, though, I saw something of my own situation here, and knew that there was something I could learn. I carried these pictures with me across the country this week and didn't post them, because I couldn't pinpoint the lesson I knew was right there. What wasn't I getting about these pictures?
Last night we moved in here:
This is a long way, in many ways, from where we lived in Georgia. This is only an interim housing solution, a place to lay our heads until we find our next real home. And yet, for the time that we're here, it has to be our nest. We have to live here, there has to be love, and excitement, and joy here. Somehow we have to find peace here.
As I looked around our new home this morning, I understood what those little boys with their mud bath had to teach me. For some reason, on a chilly mid-January afternoon, they'd wanted a pool. They weren't supplied with one, so they didn't whine, but went about making their own. And it didn't actually turn out to be exactly the pool they wanted, but what they did get made them even happier than a pool might have. The garden box, on the other hand, was something I valued, but something for which they thought they had no use.
Now we've moved into this house. While it doesn't fulfill my dreams, that doesn't mean that it wouldn't be valuable to someone else, or that their dream is any less valid than mine. For now this is what I've been given. I wanted a pool, and I got a garden box. Do I have the strength, do I have the guts, to turn on the hose and make a pool out of it? Can there be joy for us here?
As we stood in our empty house in Georgia, just before we turned the key in the lock for the last time, my own four-year-old came running through and shouted, "Momma! Why are we going to Can-ye-fornia again?"
"We're going to California to live," I said.
Thanks, boys, for showing me how to start.
~MB~
Reader Comments (8)
You made me cry. (Because I miss you....not because I don't have a pool ;-) )
Thanks for sharing that perspective. :-)
Who wants lemonade anyway...let's make mud pies.
This is very powerful. I'm impressed by your ability to take a lesson from your children. May you find as much joy in your new home as in a muddy garden bed.
the best part is the last picture, with the backwards, inside-out blue shirt. cuties.
I agree, that last photo is a treasure.
I've only just started reading your blog, and I just want you to know how much my heart is with you as you move from one beloved place trying to find another.
The shots of the new house and yard are bleak, but you will imbue them with your life and they will shine until the next wonderful place comes along, because that's what mother birds do with their nests...
Wishing you well :)
Thank you, Penny, for that little bit of hope! I appreciate so much knowing you're pulling for us.
~Erin~
(Because part of me has to be the one to miss the point - I'm feeling guilty for not being there to help you pack and watch my kids get filthy. Yes, I can turn ANYTHING into a story about me! My goal is finally achieved!)
I teared up a little bit, because I remember you and Jen coming to help me move out a year ago. A year ago? Yes, a year ago. My oh my, what a year.
You'll be great - because gardeners bloom where they are planted. They also never die out, they just lose their bloomers. (My mom's maiden name was Gardner. We have lots of punsters.)
Oh heavens! I hope I do NOT lose my bloomers. Yes, it was almost exactly a year ago, oddly enough. I wondered about that, shrugged, and went on. But I did understand more about how everybody concerned must have felt, now the shoe was on the other foot. Interesting experience, that.