Wakings

The Waking by Theodore Roethke

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

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Ah, good advice: Take Life slowly, savouring the moments. Not something we do when we are young. Then life is a carnival -- you want to see all of it, DO all of it before the time runs out and you have to go home. I know that that was my view of life, especially as a teenager. I felt this bone deep need to go and see and do NOW! And I did go, see and do quite a lot, enough to know that there were places (and people) to which I would return again and again.

And now, I am a mother -- not something I ever truly imagined -- and I want to take Life slow. I watch as my sons grow too fast, much too fast. Every day there is a change -- small to some but immense to me. I look and remember the first moments and though I wouldn't change the present for the past, there are times when I miss parts of the past -- the way my eldest born could smile with delight over the simple act of catching (finally!) a cheerio and conveying it to his mouth. Oh the joy  Or the way my youngest moved himself from spot to spot, not by crawling as so many children do but by bouncing along on his bottom. He reduced watchers to tears of laughter on more than one occasion and smiled as he did so. He still reduces people to tears and distraction, always by being himself in all his glory.

Why is time as it is? Have you ever noticed how, when you want time to fly, it drags but when you want to freeze it, it melts away? There are many discussions about time -- especially about the physics of time. There is even a website dedicated to the discussion of the possibilities of time travel -- something that I tend to think would be a BAD idea... my science fiction reading background combined with my training as an historian makes me think that 'mucking about' with the past or future would be dangerous. And people wouldn't be able to resist 'fixing' things, had they the oppurtunity. But I do admit, there are moments that I wish I could hold onto, relive when I wished. And as I watch my boys grow, oh so quickly, those moments seem to happen more and more often.

Perhaps it is also an awareness of myself growing older. Though there are many moments when I feel like my frustrated 16 year old self (On the morning of my birthday, I asked my dad why, on this momentous day, did I NOT feel any different? He just looked at me and asked 'Why should you?') there are times when I wonder where time went.  How could I not have noticed its passing? Truthfully, the Buddhists have something important when they speak of Mindfulness and of being in the Present moment. Grin. I am reminded of the passage in "Kung Fu Panda" -- 'The past is over, the future is yet to be. All we have is now and that is why it is called 'The Present'" A good point and one I try hard to remember.

My sons apparently have no problem with being 'in the moment.' I expect that that is true of all children. Though occasionally they discuss the future (as when my eldest thinks about what he wants to be... a lego designer, an oceanographer, a mad scientist) or the past (there was a little girl who BIT me when I was two and in preschool' the older brother tells the younger in an attempt to explain why homeschooling is better) most of their days and times are spent firmly in the now. My four almost five year old rescues earthworms, fearing that they might drown in the watering of the yard while my eldest carefully sets up bird feeders and bug zoos so that he can observe life up close. Their delight in the present moment wakes me to its joys and so, for a brief time, I am back in childhood when mud was fun and earthworms a wonder. What a gift...

But this is all horribly philosophical and not very helpful, I expect. We have been trying to follow Charlotte Mason's reccommendation as to Nature study but have wandered a bit off the path and in those wanderings, we have come across a fascinating book:How to Make a Miniature Zoo . This, of course, immediately caught our attention and I have, perhaps foolishly, promised that once we are moved, we will work on it. The boys, of course, are ready to start collecting NOW.

Actually, if anyone is interested in such things, Vinson Brown's other books:

How to Make a Home Nature Museum COMMON EDIBLE And USEFUL PLANTS Of The WEST. Edited by Vinson Brown. Investigating Nature Through Outdoor Projects (to name just a few!) are wonderful. And then, of course, there are always the books by Gerald Durrell:My Family and Other Animals A Zoo in My Luggage Birds, Beasts, and Relatives Menagerie Manor The Aye-Aye and I: A Rescue Journey to Save One of the World's Most Intriguing Creatures from Extinction (there are more...) are all wonderful. Indeed, it was through a film version of Durrell's My Family & Other Animals [VHS] that my sons first came to be interested in the idea of being naturalists. Now children are, by their nature, naturalists so the idea wasn't a strange one to them. What intrigued them, I think, is the idea that ADULTS actually did this for a living. LOL. Wait until they discover all the other crazy things that adults do!