Friday night, after a lovely family evening eating pizza at an outdoor table overlooking a local parking lot, I relaxed on the couch and looked through old pictures of Jake when he was Lily’s age.
That was my first mistake.
An Evening of Magical Forgetting
It was, I now see in retrospect, an evening of magical forgetting.
The moment Mike suggested we re-initiate our ritual of Friday dinners at child-friendly outdoor restaurants, we both magically forgot how we had sworn off just such Friday evenings by the time cool weather drove us indoors last fall. The more steady Jake got on his feet, it seemed, the more important it became to him to use those feet in whatever eating establishment we chose. Dinner out devolved into a tag team situation in which one of us would spend ten minutes escorting Jake on his journey so as not to disturb our fellow diners while the other ate in lonely silence. We’d then switch places, each of us soon realizing that the other had the better deal.
We had also magically forgotten just how few family-friendly restaurants with outdoor tables and menus that suit our diverse culinary needs exist in Asheville. It’s a replay of how I’ve spent the past months excited at the prospect of Friday night take-out until I realize, yet again, that our choices are pretty much cheap burritos or pizza. In fact, Friday night we ate at the pizza place from which we usually take out. Because — take out or eat in the parking lot — there is a sushi place upstairs that conveniently meets my culinary needs.
But all this forgetting turned out to be a very good thing, as far as dinner out went. Jake was a dream, Lily slept until she asked me to feed her, and my sushi was quite satisfying. We met a lovely couple with a girl a year older than Jake the way parents of young children meet each other over knowing looks of empathy. And — in one of those bittersweet moments for a parent — Jake solemnly took me up on my offer to let him eat his ice cream by himself in the children’s play section of the ice cream shop rather than with us at our table. The chance to watch a video of Ice Age 2 apparently can induce in a two-year-old the ability to make a stunning declaration of independence, even when he later admits that he was scared by it because “dinosaur fell down.”
I suppose my desire to look at those old Jake pictures may have had something to do with his sudden reminder of growing independence. Remembering what he was like at seven weeks, my subconscious may have reasoned, will remind me that even as he steps away from cuddles on the couch and big, enthusiastic hugs hello, I will have Lily to fill the void.
On the other hand, I suspect what I really wanted was reassurance that Lily will one day — soon, I pray, oh, soon — develop just a modicum of independence herself.
Unfortunately, this latter hope was crushed by what I saw.
Few parents of children over the age of a year will likely be able to tell you this — some innate sense of species preservation likely dimming our memories — but babies don’t do a whole lot between the age of one month — when they start noticing there’s a world around them — and, well, something well past three months, which is the point at which I gave up on pictures of Jake and sank into a minor depression over the sheer endlessness of parenting.
There was the picture with the proud first-time-parent caption declaring that Jake was able to raise his head and shoulders off the couch! at seven-and-a-half-weeks old. With Lily showing no signs of going down this road at seven weeks, I feared the worst. Everything I saw Jake do in these photos, I thought, Lily would not manage until much later. Especially the ones involving her head, as it is a good sight bigger and heavier than Jake’s was.
There was the sequence of Jake smiling and laughing for his mother. Not that Lily doesn’t smile broadly for me and kick her feet as if the joke is so hilarious she can hardly stand it. But the pictures of Jake provided me with an opportunity to convince myself that her smiles aren’t as, somehow, mature as his were. Of course, I find her every bit as lovable and intermittently fascinating as I ever found Jake. It’s just that I feared she would take even longer to gain her independence as those days with Jake returned to sit heavily over my chest and shoulders.
And then there was the picture of Jake sitting up on the couch. Nothing terribly remarkable about it. Except that Mike and I were in stitches when we took it because we had to prop Jake up and — look! It looks like he’s — hahahaha! — SITTING UP! when he was far, far from being able to do such a thing.
This immediately reminded me that Lily will not even be able to sit up on her own until the end of the summer.
What, I wondered, did I do with Jake all day when he couldn’t sit up, couldn’t grasp anything on his own, couldn’t use words to express himself, couldn’t ambulate on his own, and, in short, needed me for pretty much everything?
Oh yeah. I went a little bit crazy.
How I would have loved a little magical forgetting to descend on that part of my evening.
Paths and Destinations
The thing about being the parent of an infant is that you practically can’t help looking to the future.
We all understand that we should appreciate every perfect moment with our small ones. But, come on, it’s just not possible to sustain such an intense interest in the occasional perfect goo for all of a baby’s waking hours, limited as they may be. I’m pretty sure nature sets us up to wish fervently for the day they will exhibit more independence just so that we are willing to let them go when the time comes.
And so I look to the future when I will have more time to myself, and I count on old photos to help me do it. And I’m slightly devastated when all they tell me is that I have a long, long way to go until Lily comes running at me across the preschool playground the way Jake does when I pick him up in the afternoons.
This creates a really lovely internal conflict. On the one hand, as I push Jake home in his jogging stroller, Lily strapped in the Ergo — right about the point where I walk a block out of my way so Jake can look at the school buses parked outside the nearby elementary school — I start thinking about the day when he will attend the school and I will not have to transport two children home from preschool with small, weighed-down steps. Instantly, my heart seizes up so violently I fear crashing to the sidewalk in a minor coronary episode at the very thought of Jake being three years older than he is, of all this adorable-ness being gone. And then I remind myself that he will indeed be three years older than he is very, very soon. Which makes me imagine my kids as teenagers with all the cuddliness and sweetness sucked out of them.
Right about now, my choice is either to panic or to count school buses with Jake. I choose the counting, even though I know there will be three school buses. There are three school buses parked in front of the elementary school every afternoon.
This crush between looking forward to the future and being terrified of it is a strong reminder of why much of yoga is about letting go of our longing for, imagining of, attempts to control the future. As tantalizing as it might be — and who doesn’t want to imagine a time when whatever is so very wrong in her life right now has magically ceased to be? — focusing on the future is just a way of distracting us from our present lives. The prospect of my children growing up as quickly as I race forward in my mind is exactly the hit over the head I need to awaken to the preciousness of this moment with them.
When we look to the future, we imagine mythical end points, that place where our lives will be just what we want them to be and we, presumably, will live right there, frozen in time for all of perfect eternity. Of course, that perfect stopping point doesn’t exist, and even if it did and even if we could reach it, we’d touch it with our toes and keep right on going. Because — surprise — time doesn’t stop and things don’t stop moving in our lives.
So what? I can tell myself. If I ever reach that point and it disappears, I’ll deal. It’s the getting there — the goal — that tantalizes. Isn’t what’s keeping me teetering on the edge of losing it during these first months with Lily the very aimlessness of my life? No work assignments, few appointments, my days easiest when I let Lily tell me when I have time to myself and when it’s all about her — that’s what my life consists of at the moment. Sounds simple enough. And it is. Except when it isn’t.
I am, frankly, somewhat addicted to the calendar in my head. The one that helps me mark out my days and my weeks by the events that frame them. That word “events” is used in its loosest sense. A day could be marked by something as simple as going to the grocery store. As if my life gains meaning from doing things I can report back on to Mike. Reading a book all day? That’s for vacation, my friend.
This state of mind seems harmless enough. It’s something to occupy my mind on walks to Jake’s preschool or during a morning shower as I gather myself for the day. But when I start to see how it’s propelling me forward with less energy to devote to my actual day — my day with my children who are growing so very quickly — the danger of it becomes clear.
Quite simply, if we live with an eye toward the future, we see much less of what is happening to us now, in the present. We rush through life headed for a goal we might never attain, rising and falling on something beyond our control and beyond our reach. And we miss the beauty in the moment.
Sure, the beauty is easiest to quantify when a child is involved. But when our children give us the time and space to look around, there are so many other small things in our lives worth savoring. The way the sun cuts through the abundant leaves of the maple trees in front of my house. How my husband slides his fingers along the stem of a wine glass as we eat the local trout he has made us for dinner. The sweet dog with the soft fur and the pink spot on her nose greeting me with an unmistakable smile as I enter my acupuncturist’s office.
Little things that seem even smaller when I try to measure them against the expanse of my week, month, lifetime. And that become even more saturated with beauty when I stop looking ahead and savor the moment in which I live.
Rooted in Virabhadrasana II — A Dance Between Present and Future
One of the themes to which I often return in virabhadrasana II (Warrior II) is finding the present. Most of us tend to lean forward in the pose — placing undue weight over our front leg and sending most of our body weight in the direction of that front hand as if it is pointing us toward something. We want to rush forward to that future. We have difficulty balancing the energy of the back leg and the back arm, placing our body right in the center. In the present moment.
The challenge in doing so is, of course, much of what can be learned from the pose. It may, in fact, be challenge enough for you.
I invite you to take the challenge a step further if you’d like. From virabhadrasana II, try anchoring your legs so they stay exactly where they are as your torse moves in a dance between viparita virabhadrasana (reverse warrior) and uttita parshvakonasana (extended side angle): From virabhadrasana II, inhale into viparita virabhadrasana, exhale back to virabhadrasana II, inhale in virabhadrasana II, exhale into uttita pashvakonasana, inhale back into virabhadrasana II, and exhale in virabhadrasana II . Three or more times. Make it a dance with the present.
Virabhadrasana II Instructions