I and Thy

Yesterday was the first day back to the workplace for me, young one.  After a summer-long stint of complete freedom, we now prepare for a completely different life routine.  No more waking up slowly with you, lounging around in our ‘pajamas’ until noon.  Less likely are we to make our early morning shopping run to Trader Joe’s.  It is unlikely that we will stop by McDonalds for a couple of breakfast burritos, on our early and merry way to the Aberdeen Star Wars shop, some strange estate sale or Snoqualmie Falls.  It was a good summer, though.  It was a very good summer.  Now life offers us something different.  Kindergarten begins for us, and you, your mom and I all seem pretty excited about that.  I think, though, we may all be excited about it for different reasons.

When I went back to the school I work at yesterday, everyone seemed thrilled to be back.  People were talking energetically with each other, happily chatting about their summers.  At one point, everyone was clapping together in unison to the song “Happy.”  I sat with these people, slightly confused, with the look of an accompanying spouse to a Mary Kay introductory lunch.  I appear, perhaps, as a judgemental outsider.  I am not judging though, just observing the contrasts.

I come off a little more, shall we say, subdued.   Some people have even gone so far as to tell me to smile more, seemingly concerned or depressed by my contrasting energy. For years, some of life’s more extroverts have labeled me ‘heavy’ or stoic.  I used to be proud of this distinction.  Now days it takes a little consciousness, on my part, to be in the midst of large group of people I differ from without judging myself as ‘weird’.  I no longer use the crutch of ‘pride’ to power through such moments.  The diverging energy can feel like it desires to change me, to become like itself.  Sometimes  it presents foux, facade and glitter to convince me to follow it.  Instead of resisting all of that, these days, I let it. Where as I used to push forward with my own ideals, proclaiming some supposed moral high ground, I now look to serve the others somehow.  When I do this, when I choose this perspective, I am at peace.  I am not at peace as much as I would like, but I know what it feels like.  It is a far more pleasurable experience than anything my ego has to offer.

It is likely that some part of you may feel different.  Either from the others in your class, home or even different from the greater mainstream of society.  Try not to judge, condemn or separate yourself from the ‘others’  too much. Life is created, motivated and kept interesting by contrasts. Remember the pizza parable of the sauce and the cheese?  Me either, but the piquancy of a well made tomato sauce paired with the creamy mozzarella is an obvious expression of divine unity, no?

If everybody was the same, well that  would be totally boring.  I need to remember this when your mother loads the dishwasher….um….differently.   When I hold the door for hundreds of people who are different than I, who stare with confusion and distrust at my subdued demeanor,  I would do well to remember this. Even though we appear to be different, those exuberant souls are part of what makes being ‘me’ possible.  Without them, nothing.  Is it not stones and the water together, after all, that make music of the forest stream?  Together but different. Their interaction, however convoluted and seemingly obstructive, actually creates something beautiful.  If you can get a little distance, detach a bit, you may well hear the bubbling melody.