Paying Attention
“Mommy, before you go sit in the sun, I want to show you my creation!” my son calls to me as I’m about to sneak out the sliding door to the backyard. He’s been building some type of contraption with Magnatiles, spending days and days on it actually. It sits on the coffee table in our play room, squares and jutting triangles, topped with toy cars and airplanes.
Honestly, I want to knock it down and put it away. Clean it up and wipe the clutter away. But he’s begged to keep it up, and I’ve acquiesced. He’s been in his own little world, only occasionally arguing with a sister over particular pieces. I haven’t been paying his building much attention, other than to urge him to keep the pieces off the floor where people could slip on them.
“Okay,” I say, “Show me your creation,” and reluctantly step back over the threshold into the house. He shows me the rooms he has for his cars, the garage and the elevator. I ooh and ahh appropriately, quite impressed at his details and the way he’s manipulated the pieces just the way he wants them. He’s happy to show me and grins from ear to ear, shyly touching his pieces. I smile back at him. It is heart warming to see him so excited about something.
He begins to fiddle with a car on an orange, square tile and I see his mind begin to focus on his creation again. “Can I go outside now?” I ask.
“Okay,” he tells me distractedly, already engrossed in toys.
“Hey,” I say to him and he pauses to bring his blue eyes up to meet mine. “How did you know Mommy was going to sit in the sun?”
“Because that’s what you always do,” he answers. He’s right, of course. When the kids are occupied quietly indoors, the sunshine in the backyard calls to me and I sneak out the sliding door with a book and a glass of ice water. I wasn’t paying attention to him, but he’s been watching me.
Outside, I settle in to a cushioned chair directly in the sunlight and set my glass on a wrought-iron table. I close my eyes and absorb the warmth from the sun’s rays, relaxing into the chair and putting my feet up. Then I pick up my book* and begin to read, transporting myself to a faraway land where horses rise up from water and will harm you if you’re not paying attention. I’m sucked in by the romance and the danger and ignore the world around me. Once I begin to feel too much heat from the sun, I head back inside to check on the children.
My daughter comes downstairs to show me the journal she’s been working in. She proudly shows me the comic book she’s creating. She has drawn a hero and a villain. There are characters with clouds and rain coming down on their heads. “This means they’re sad,” she tells me. “The girl was mean to her.” She shows me the words she’s written in the thought bubbles, turning each page and reading it to me. I can’t help but laugh at the onomatopoeia she uses: “Bam! Bam! Bam!” “Wak!” I’m so impressed with her attention to detail. I didn’t have to tell her that a raincloud above someone’s head means sadness. Or how to use the bubbles above the characters’ heads to write their words. Or even how to use the words that are sounds. She figured it out all on her own. I know she’s been reading a lot of comics, but I wasn’t really paying attention to her doing so. As it turns out, she was doing more than just reading them. She was studying them.
“I’m so impressed!” I tell her. She grins shyly at me, but we both feel the joy of a fun project well done.
After dinner I mechanically rinse plates and wipe down the sink in front of the kitchen window. I notice the plants on my windowsill and marvel at the number of violet flowers on my African Violet. I was once gifted an African Violet by a family I babysat for, and I treasured it for years. The plant on my windowsill is not the same one, but it makes me think of that time, of being young and energetic. There are a bunch of flowers in full bloom on my plant right now. I rotate the plant to take a closer look. I didn’t realize there were so many. The purple petals brighten up my windowsill and I smile at their beauty. They must have multiplied when I wasn’t paying attention.
Sometimes I worry that I’m not doing enough for the children; that I’m not teaching them enough or having them experience enough. I worry that I’m leaving them to their own devices so I can go sit outside in the sun, when I should be paying more attention to them and guiding them on the path that I want them to take. Then I take a step back and see the joy on my son’s face as he describes his latest Magnatile creation, or the pride in my daughter’s eyes as she shows me her comic book. The light in their eyes fills me with simple, unexpected joy. And I realize, sometimes things bloom when I’m not paying attention.
Graphic by Phoenix Feathers Calligraphy