October 17th; Week 11 - Balance and Hope

The fall weather in New England is really indescribable.  No picture I could ever take, and even the most professional photos that I've seen, can ever show the true glory of it.  Much like the time I stood at the edge of a cliff on the Pacific Coast and watched a wave surging over rocky outcroppings over and over - and I cried at the amazing beauty of it... fall in New England awes me.  Every day is different, the colors can change depending upon the sun and the cloud cover and what you see can be different from hour to hour.  And all of it is a metaphor explaining the way I see my son.  He is, in essence, fall in New England.

I was reading a book about parenting the Spirited Child (along with books about the Strong Willed child and the Sensitive Child, and the Explosive Child - do you see a theme here?) and while all of those words are easily applied to Griffin, they are not meant to be negative descriptions at all.  They certainly can be viewed as negative, but looked at in a different light - perhaps with a little less cloud cover maybe? - they are words conveying strength, power, intuition, and energy.  When I choose to look at G's actions in a positive light, I see so much more joy and potential than when I am seeing him through tired, worried, self-judging eyes.

I have had three friends impart a little of their perspective recently and it is interesting that as I look back on those moments of hearing their thoughts that the one friend whose comment was negative left me feeling beaten down and responsible for my sons energy - and the two perspectives that were positive allowed me the room to step back and see that G is such an amazing kid and I am, in fact, doing a really good job right here, right now, in this moment.  Could I do better? Sure, I mean, can't we all?  But once again I return to the absolute certainty that my journey here is about balance - and in the big picture, Griff and I are together creating a balance for him.

We are gearing up for Halloween.  Costumes, candy, the excitement... craft projects (which never go well when you mix an energetic and quick thinking four year old with a hot glue gun and a multi-step process!) and leaf collecting, apple picking, pumpkin decorating and the most perfect weather ever have made the past couple of weeks mostly about fun.  Seeing all of the things I love viewed through Griffins joyful brown eyes is just more evidence to my soul of the goodness of the universe, the love of God for me and my family, and the balance of it all brings me hope.  Hope may not be the feeling most people associate with fall, it may be surprising to hear that emotion linked to falling leaves and shorter days but that is yet another thing I've learned from Griffin:  expectations aren't for us, everything is surprising, and hope is alive.