dream conception
Life is a dream I cannot conceive of. There are paths I travel that foment a taste of truth yet torment because the flavors are so quickly digested and a new hunger stirred at each fork on the trail. I have full assurance and total peace for the future yet no knowledge and a steady bombardment of questions for each day. I feel no doubt in my total trust of security and millions of doubts for the persons I meet and even recognize from other trails. The end of the trail is powerfully true, and as I take each step closer I begin to realize the fork I chose was laid out long before I could see it over the hill or around the bend yet as I reach a new fork I know the choice is mine. Is it a choice I made before the dream and discover along the way, or a careful plan mapped out by one much wiser? The hilarity on this exercise is that the answer truly does not matter, yet the answer is what I seek.
The more I work with young children the more I discover they are owners of truth we have long ago discarded because of some perverse need to mold them into ourselves. The child feels joy not at the expense of others, but in the quest of discovery. A child has no need to seek innocence, plainness, or simplicity.
The neurons we have decided to call thoughts cannot be contained. I see them in an oleander bush and the space of time is so infinitesimal that it seems almost simultaneously to bounce off the rear of my skull into an area of my brain that forms something fleetingly concrete that will disappear from the moment and from forever unless captured onto paper for further study. The amount of time utilized to construct a full sentence evaporated the power of the song experienced while viewing the oleander. A child, however, would remember the tune and the color, absorb the mystery and become one with it.
Even my contemplations are not my truth, but the truths of all those who have over the years molded me with their truths. My grammar is not the grammar I spoke as a discoverer, but the grammar of those who insisted that they needed to understand me so I must be forced to speak their language and imitate their grammar. If I expressed the truths I was experiencing I was scolded and made to feel inferior, a simpleton. When I chose to daydream I was written upon for my eternity, “a very bright but lazy student.” When I chose to speak with friends and enjoy their discoveries and quests the report said “Could be a bright child if he could stop talking with the other children during class.” When I tried to take these lessons I read and re-read to heart and try to be what they wanted me to be my next report was “a very shy child who has the potential to be bright if he would open up.” And so on infinitum.
A child learns quickly not to express the truth. Especially the truth of what they are feeling. If you tell Aunt Joanie that it hurts when she hugs you so hard everyone looks at you with stern faces, not at the person who hugged you so hard. The stern faces tell you that what you said was somehow wrong, even though it was true. Later mom will say, Aunt Joanie really means well.” Sure, maybe, but, damnit, it still hurts. The good news is that Aunt Joanie’s fragile ego was so hurt by your hurtful comment that she never hugs you again. She also never sends you $5 for your birthday ever again, and soon you realize you haven’t even seen her for 35 years. Time, as a concept, never stops. And you accidentally hug a child too hard. He’s 5, you’re 40. Our strength seems as nothing to you. What will be your reaction when the child tells you the truth? The path of choice. Your choice has been established, yet you do not know it. Your choice defines you. Love the child or leave the child forever etched in your mind as your mortal enemy.
This simple story ferments an earlier thought into a full glass of deep, dark, wisely aged petite sirah and lets me know an earlier truth is so easily negated. Earlier I discovered thoughts cannot be contained, yet I realize with just as much clarity that those who harbor hatred toward a child have perfected the craft of containing thought. A contained thought is not free. A contained thought cannot explore. But it is obvious that thoughts can be contained. This hypocrisy excites me because both statements contain absolute truth. And can live within the same person at absolutely the same time. Life is a vision I cannot visualize.
The more I work with young children the more I discover they are owners of truth we have long ago discarded because of some perverse need to mold them into ourselves. The child feels joy not at the expense of others, but in the quest of discovery. A child has no need to seek innocence, plainness, or simplicity.
The neurons we have decided to call thoughts cannot be contained. I see them in an oleander bush and the space of time is so infinitesimal that it seems almost simultaneously to bounce off the rear of my skull into an area of my brain that forms something fleetingly concrete that will disappear from the moment and from forever unless captured onto paper for further study. The amount of time utilized to construct a full sentence evaporated the power of the song experienced while viewing the oleander. A child, however, would remember the tune and the color, absorb the mystery and become one with it.
Even my contemplations are not my truth, but the truths of all those who have over the years molded me with their truths. My grammar is not the grammar I spoke as a discoverer, but the grammar of those who insisted that they needed to understand me so I must be forced to speak their language and imitate their grammar. If I expressed the truths I was experiencing I was scolded and made to feel inferior, a simpleton. When I chose to daydream I was written upon for my eternity, “a very bright but lazy student.” When I chose to speak with friends and enjoy their discoveries and quests the report said “Could be a bright child if he could stop talking with the other children during class.” When I tried to take these lessons I read and re-read to heart and try to be what they wanted me to be my next report was “a very shy child who has the potential to be bright if he would open up.” And so on infinitum.
A child learns quickly not to express the truth. Especially the truth of what they are feeling. If you tell Aunt Joanie that it hurts when she hugs you so hard everyone looks at you with stern faces, not at the person who hugged you so hard. The stern faces tell you that what you said was somehow wrong, even though it was true. Later mom will say, Aunt Joanie really means well.” Sure, maybe, but, damnit, it still hurts. The good news is that Aunt Joanie’s fragile ego was so hurt by your hurtful comment that she never hugs you again. She also never sends you $5 for your birthday ever again, and soon you realize you haven’t even seen her for 35 years. Time, as a concept, never stops. And you accidentally hug a child too hard. He’s 5, you’re 40. Our strength seems as nothing to you. What will be your reaction when the child tells you the truth? The path of choice. Your choice has been established, yet you do not know it. Your choice defines you. Love the child or leave the child forever etched in your mind as your mortal enemy.
This simple story ferments an earlier thought into a full glass of deep, dark, wisely aged petite sirah and lets me know an earlier truth is so easily negated. Earlier I discovered thoughts cannot be contained, yet I realize with just as much clarity that those who harbor hatred toward a child have perfected the craft of containing thought. A contained thought is not free. A contained thought cannot explore. But it is obvious that thoughts can be contained. This hypocrisy excites me because both statements contain absolute truth. And can live within the same person at absolutely the same time. Life is a vision I cannot visualize.
posted by Cholla Needles | 10:24 PM
1 Comments:
you are a very wise and wonderful teacher..i believe God has the path of teaching in your soul..the tings you say are truths...
Post a Comment
<< Home