“Mom, wanna see my bus face?” I looked over at my eldest daughter. Instead of the funny face I imagined I would see, the one I was met with made me catch my breath. Her bright blue eyes were dark, a color I didn’t recognize. Her usually animated features stared me down, blank and cold, the way our favorite evil fairy Maleficent’s did when we would giggle in terror watching Sleeping Beauty.
I wanted to trade her evil fairy face with TINKER BEL’s playful one. When I looked more closely at my child, though, I could see my familiar, curly haired girl stuck behind that mask.
I invisibly put my hand on my own heart, and silently apologized to her and then to myself for my fear. Now that she is out there in the world, in our urban stratosphere of buses and trains, she has developed a new and appropriate response to her environment. I was simultaneously sad and impressed with this new veneer. She had devised her own safety bubble between her Self and the potentially big, bad world of Strangers out there. I wish she didn’t need one. I thought of our walks around the neighborhood when she was a toddler. I would make sure we both smiled and engaged with the people on our path, whether we knew them or not. The person who asked for change got the same smile as did the family of four walking their dog. I wanted to encourage my hesitantly friendly girl to trust herself and the unknown people around us.
Now that those unknown people in her world have expanded way beyond my watchful eye, she has every right to treat them with caution. So the question becomes one of balance, as always. How can we encourage our children to be both street smart AND spontaneous, to adapt to the situation at hand, but not loose the freedom that comes out of a deep sense of trust? In listening to psychologist, author and teacher of meditation Tara Brach, I understand the “gateway” that fear can be between the outside and those deeper sacred spaces inside all of us(the second masterclass with Tara Brach). The problem becomes letting this fear run on auto pilot. She says the delete button gets sort of stuck and we begin to approach all things from this new practice point of fear. As a person who is big into practice, this resonated with me. The idea that we truly “risk loosing that safe, pure wondrous self so important for finding love and spontaneity, and the radical acceptance of our selves.”
I like the idea of a bus face actually. The challenge becomes in how it is worn. If we FULLY recognize the time and place this mask is needed, then we can more consciously be aware of when to take it off as well. The more fascicle we are with our different selves, the more integrated we can ultimately be.
We will continue to practice, freely and in wonder, this FRIDAY MORNING 9/9 BUT AT 8:15 am.
Regular schedule:
Wednesdays 9:15 am
Fridays 8:30 am
in gratitude, michelle
***friends, for this Friday, please let me know if you are NOT coming, thank you!
