beautiful, fun, interesting, and delicious
i think about my childhood a lot these days, as i am now in charge of someone else’s (two someones, actually). and what i remember most about being so new in the world are all of the beautiful, fun, interesting, and delicious things my parents showed my brother and me. i will never forget the first time they took us to fall creek falls state park, and we got see and walk behind this waterfall:
or the time our family spent a few nights in new orleans, and my parents took my brother and me to cafe du monde for beignets. they were almost giddy when i took my first yummy bite. now i know the feeling.
but perhaps the most recurring such events in my childhood were our trips to the gulf coast, the same coast i’m looking at now as i type and as the monkey and bird sleep. my parents started by showing us the ocean. then they taught my brother and me to ride its waves, mine if for shells, and make castles in its surf. and when we got a little older, they taught us to settle down beside it with a good book.
but what i remember most about my introduction to the world’s wonders is that it felt, at the time, as if my parents had invented all of these things just for my brother and me. whether we were wading in a creek in middle tennessee, riding the tube in london, or eating my dad’s saturday morning pancakes, it felt as if my parents were letting their children in on a set of sweet secrets conjured up merely for our benefit.
my parents didn’t invent the world’s wonders for us, of course, nor are my husband and i inventing them for our boys. but there is something so accurate about my childhood idea of my parents as inventors. the world is full of so much potential for happiness, sadness, and every emotion in between. and though much of life is spent coping and grieving those things that are beyond our control, we can continue to invent lives for ourselves that embrace what is beautiful, fun, interesting, and delicious.
being a parent is a constant reminder of this redeeming truth. it takes us back to the basic goodness of life, and while we are opening our kids to this goodness, we cannot help but open up to it again ourselves.
i can tell that the monkey and bird are already starting to become inventors. not inventors of the ocean and beignets, of course, but little people who are blazing new trails to the earth’s gifts, trails to which i hope they return, again and again.
p.s. i refrained (pardon the pun) from covering the wonders of music in this post, for reasons i have stated earlier.
March 25th, 2010 at 10:01 am
You are lucky to have had such a childhood. I did not. But, I still see my childhood as a blessing (well, after years of drugs and therapy
) The gift my parents gave me (unintentionally) was strength and patience. To my close friends it may sometimes not seem like I have these traits because of the tears and whining they have heard never the less, I have them.
I try as a parent now to instill these traits by letting them fall and teaching them how to pick themselves up and push on.
Scott and I both are right there with you and Andy…..we love to introduce the lovely thngs the world has for them. I took Madeleine to the Orpheum to see Cats when she was just six years old. Her eyes were as big as saucers and she didn’t move the entire time. She even teared up and grabbed my hand during “Memories”
What a tough job we have as parents to introduce the wonders of the world but also prepare them to deal with the not so wondrous.