a glass jar

I watch them now, how they run from one end of the house to the other and I really do want to keep them here, in this space and time. I had this crazy thought, when my heart was bursting for the right now of them. I wanted to scoop them up and put them in a glass jar that's just the right size to hold them, to screw on the tin cover, just to watch them, to keep them this way. Like lightening bugs. But of course that can't be, they are not boys meant for bubbles or jars, they are my little people, and they're here, free. So free it hurts.

When I try to break free of the inevitable, to fight reality, to stop growth, trapping, controlling, even with the best of intentions, it suffocates. And yet, one part of my mothering heart wants to do it anyway, The Great Protector! But I know it would hurt them too much, bouncing against the rounded glass walls, their little lights going out.

So I think of them as older than now, five years, ten years and more and I wonder what we'll all look like and feel like and how we'll be different. I imagine what they will love to do and I believe in their potential, that they're going to be okay. They'll grow taller and I'll grow shorter. What a strange idea. Me, with so many lines on my face and gray hair. But I can do no trapping of my own life's time either, no halting of my growth. Not by growing complacent or stalling out, not by nipping and tucking and injecting, zapping out my light and the ache of years of wisdom written over me. The perseverance and the fine lines and wrinkles, the curved back and the silver hair, they are all simply signs of wisdom, and to wish that away would make about as much sense as trying to stop the growth of my boys with a glass jar.



This is why the ordinary things, the days and the routines, the seemingly endless sameness, it is all so truly extraordinary. It just is. It must be, the way it all marches on with little feet getting bigger, running from one end of the house to the other.

The things most out of our control, like what an everyday day holds or does not hold, or like growing up and growing old, they are the very most beautiful things. These inevitables, they are a spinning breeze with the tallest and greenest grass and softest moonlight, so we can flicker and glow, free.