How many times have you been advised to look at something from a different perspective?
It generally doesn’t help, especially if you”ve already made your mind up. As adults, that really isn’t a luxury we can afford as we get older. Legalese and purposeful obfuscation (found in anything from insurance to social security paperwork) make that an impossibility. For us, there is generally one way to look at things and we damn well better accept it, deal with it, and stop whining about it.
Irving Penn, Hippie Family, San Francisco, 1967
I liked looking at things upside-down. Hanging from a tree with my once flexible knees bent over a branch that could break any moment allowed me to see things from a more fascinating point of view. The other way I liked to look at things, or rather hear things, was under the water. Pool or bathtub, it didn’t matter. It was me.
When I was upside-down, or submerged beneath the water, I was in a kind of Wonderland that was pleasant to get lost in. Those things that scared me, didn’t seem so scary then. Of course, I was blessedly ignorant of those troubles my parents dealt with on a daily basis.
It makes me breathe easier that I am not a parent.
Put aside that I’m not a Nurturer and I’m the mother that would leave her kids at the mall and wouldn’t give the fact that they are missing a thought until, maybe, dinnertime I do believe that having children is a blessing. Not a gift to be looked at passively.
Children are magical beings. Remember, they can look at things in ways we adults cannot remember ever seeing in such a way. Children are able to draw an adult into their world, if briefly, but it’s enough to give us adults a reminder that once we were so free.
I don’t like the news; printed or digital or television. Too often I see or hear stories of mothers or fathers who have no clue what a gift their children are. There are too many such stories and the fact that you just need to Google the news and can find such a story everyday — that’s frightening.
Do you have children? When’s the last time they drew you into their magical world?
Peace out, man.
