Wisdom from Hemojababala

Today, Tyler and I made a return journey to our old, ancient friend, Hemojababala. It had been months since we last chatted with the stone man of Rowntree Park who speaks wisdom as though it were water rushing quickly from a very, very long and bendy straw.

Today, Hemojababala graced my young son and I with these remarkable gems--which we held in our hearts and hands, and which were like a fire that did not burn us, but warmed us to the point just-before-burning:

• Falling down is sometimes the best thing that can happen to you. It forces you to look up at the broad, blue (sometimes) sky above you. Alternately--if it happens to be raining--falling down enables you to remember that water is an important part of life.
• Mud is awesome. It's not dirt. Nor it is water. It uses both but becomes something new. This, Luke and Tyler (and all of humanity) is paramount because you, too, must be like mud. Mud sticks to stuff. It is thick. If you try and tell mud, Give up, why don't you! mud will only slurp back at you, No way, dude. I'm not going anywhere.
• Consider God's sense of humor: giraffes; kangaroos; the essential fact that all humans fart; the sound of flatulence itself--which is a daily reminder not to take oneself too seriously, even though many attempt to live in a way that denies the fact of their own flatulence.
• I wasn't always stone. Before I was stone, I do not know what I was. This is a good thing. It reminds me that even I--the Great and Ancient Hemojababala--do not know everything. (I know more than most anybody else who visits me, but I do not know everything.) You, too, must remember that you do not know everything. And you definnitely do not know nearly as much as me.
• Sometimes, when you feel as though everything is simply too hard: eat a lollipop. Consider the lollipop--it neither whines nor complains. Eat the lollipop, yes, but also BE the lollipop.
• Take Andre Gide's words to heart: "In order to discover new lands, one must lose sight of the shore for a very long time." (I gave him that line, and I hold no grudges (even though he didn't properly credit me.))
• Michelangelo once said: "I saw the angel in the marble and I carved him out until I set him free." (I also provided that line of wisdom when Old Mike visited me centuries ago; he was agitated, as I remember it, and I simply reminded him that the angel is already (and always) there: one must only carve, and carve, and carve it out until one sets it free: the creation is already accomplished, the carving remains.)

Thank you, Hemojababala, for the above gems of prodigious wisdom which you've dispelled to Tyler and I today. Whenever we drink from straws, we will remember your words, ponder them deeply, and then squelch through the mud.

Surrender

Is a beautiful thing.

For the past month and a half, Tyler's sleep habits have been as erratic as a moose chewing bubble gum trying to itch his hind leg with one of his front legs while also sneezing into a thin tissue.

The stats:

Last night: four wake-ups at 1:00 a.m., 2:30 a.m., 3:30 a.m., and 4:30 a.m. Each time, he wakes with an incredible gusto, as if he'd been summoned to run with the bulls, climb to the peak of Mt. Everest, or eat a yellow lollipop.

Jennifer and I thought we had left this stage long behind, after we passed babyhood and entered the glorious land of toddlerhood. And now, hitting the big "3" we were sure it was over and done with. After all, only two months ago we were the proud parents of a child who slept from 6:30 p.m. until 7 a.m. every night.

No wake-ups.

Not so much as a cough or a mumble.

Nada.

I used to listen to the other parents at playgroups discussing their problems with non-sleeping children, and I could nod empathetically and emphatically, all the while thinking Dude, we, like so DO NOT have that problem! And I am desperately sorry for you. Yes, I really, REALLY am. But I'm so glad that I am me and you are you. Because seriously: I couldn't handle losing that much sleep.

Now I am the one who gets the empathetic, emphatic nods. And I know what they mean.

Yup: I am the one now. Jen and I are the ones who don't know what it feels like to say goodnight and then wake when the sun is rising. Instead, we hear the shouts from our little man and we half-wakingly mumble to one another "Your turn?" while each hoping it can't be me again!

But then something happened last week to change everything.

The thing that happened is the kind of thing that can revitalize life and goals and dreams and hopes and joys. As a writer, the thing that happened is particularly applicable to other areas of my life.

Namely this: surrender.

Jen and I finally realized that nothing works. We tried letting him cry out the wake-ups. But Tyler only got more and more, well, woken up. He then got scared. Really scared. Coughed. High-pitched screams. Trial over.

We tried talking it through. Dead-end.

We tried eating a lot before bed. Nope.

Eating a little. Zero success.

Drinking a lot? Drinking a little? A bit of Children's Tylenol? A softer mattress? A harder mattress?

No, no, no, no, and no.

And so finally we came to the realization that I think happy parents everywhere must come to: surrender, baby. Surrender is what it's all about.

But not surrender as in, I give up! This is too hard! White flag: wha-la!

No--I mean surrender as in we say: Okay, all my theories turned out to be about as substantial as using masking tape to fix a broken banana.

Jen and I began letting go of the expectation that Tyler was supposed to be sleeping straight through the night. We started to think differently: hey, he's not sleeping through the night now. One day he will. Not this day.

And expecting him to wake up, and dealing with it hopefully, has made all the difference. Surrendering our view of the ways things should be has allowed us not to miss the joy we're experiencing now, when he's AWAKE (instead of walking around the house mumbling, I'm as tired as a donkey who has hiked the Grand Canyon down and up while also contemplating the image of a moose trying to chew bubble gum, itch his hind leg with his front leg...)

We're getting the same amount of sleep, but we're feeling a whole heck of a lot more rested.
As a writer, expectations run the gamut in my head. Before I began sending work out ten years ago, I had an inordinate amount of expectations about what the publishing process is like. Once I began getting back my early rejections on my first novel, I began to develop a more realistic sense of how it works.

But it hasn't been until the more recent close calls on my sixth novel that I'm seeing how dizzying it all is, and how inevitable a part of the process waiting is. We write. We wait. And if we're really committed to being lifelong writers because the thought of NOT writing makes us feel like moose who chew gum while...then we write while we wait.

We see ideas painted in the sky and graffiti-ed on the fences and stamped along the construction sites where we walk and live and laugh.

We hear ideas in the words of a grocery store clerk, a learning baby, a consoling daddy, an interesting bathroom experience.

We sense ideas in a scene that develops before our eyes like it was part of some cosmic movie projected just for us--just for a moment--so that we could be inspired by life to create life that will inspire others to live.

To live.

And isn't that the point of it all? Or, as Rainer Maria Rilke once wrote it, "To live the questions." One way of living the questions--as a parent and as a writer--is to surrender to them.

It doesn't mean throwing up our arms and then sitting on a patch of dry grass sucking our teeth. No. But it does mean letting go of the expectation that things have to progress a certain way, or follow a certain formula.

Because children and books share one beautiful thing in common: neither much likes to be told who it is--to be told exactly how to live, grow, stretch, sleep, wake, breathe, dream, dance. Both need to have the space to learn themselves and find their own ways into the hearts of their creators, the hearts of their friends.

And space, perhaps, is just another word for surrender.

Whether Tyler sleeps straight through the night tonight, or five weeks from now (or more!), I've stopped holding my breath. Instead, I'm learning to enjoy the waking moments, not counting the cost so much of the minutes of slumber lost.

Whether I get a call from my agent tonight with the news that a novel or a picture book has sold, or five weeks from now (or more!), I've stopped holding my breath as well. Instead, I'm learning to throw all energy into the process. More voices clamber for their stories: that seventh novel needs to be written to join his six siblings. That 29th picture book is waiting for an incarnation to join his cousins.

And there's too  much to enjoy to count the minutes of waiting through the times that don't follow the patterns of my expectations. Because the living is in the now, the living is all about learning to have real joy and create magical moments even if Sleeping or The Call don't arrive anytime soon.

And if there's one thing I want to teach my son, it's exactly that: don't live your life waiting for the next thing; live your life embracing the present thing. The next thing will happen soon enough--and usually once you stop calculating exactly when.

After Illness

The thing is, there's no way around it. Even though we plan our lives to completely evade it as much as possible, we can't.

No matter how much money we try and insulate ourselves with, bam! It's there like mud after rain.

No matter how many packets of Vitamin C powdery-fizzy goodness we mix into our waters, or how many super-healthy-eating cookbooks and fitness guides we buy with titles like Become a Super Human Android in Five Easy Steps While Eating Only Chocolate Only Through Your Nose, it's there.

It is.

No matter, either, if we stayed inside, never got wet, never touched another human being even. It's still there. We're going to get it.

Illness. Colds. Flu. Diarrhea. Vomiting. The whole gamut.

I started to come to peace with this reality when I began teaching seventh graders. I caught everything they had--and man, they had it all. It seemed every week I was coming home with a new variation on the age-old cold.

Now that I am a home-dad, it seems playgroups and playdates in York, England carry those determined bacteria just as confidently as do public schools in New England.

Tyler has just fought off his third bout with something. Jen and I have stopped trying to label each successive cold. Instead, we've tried to love him through it, help him see that it will pass, put vapor rub under his chin, hold him through the coughing fits, and let him watch as many movies as he wants.

(Meanwhile, we steel ourselves for the undeniable fact: we're next.)

But the thing about realizing that we're all going to get sick is this: after illness comes health. Most mornings, we wake up and start our days. But after illness we wake up and feel like high-fiving the post carrier, doing a flip down the stairs, and eating our bowls of cereal while singing the Hallelujah chorus through every bite--milk spraying, Cheerios flying free.

We get better. Colds leave. Flu hitchhikes out of town. Fevers drop. Coughing stops. Vomiting ceases. Diarrhea slows. It passes.

During my most recent battle with a vomiting-inducing-cold of some strain or other, I sat on the bathroom floor, clutching my stomach with one hand, the toilet with the other. Preparing to retch for the 11th time in two hours (no hyperbole, really).

Tyler was asleep, and Jen was there with me for moral support. (It hadn't yet made the leap to my lovely wife.) I looked up at Jen when there was a break in the vomiting traffic. "I can't do this anymore."  Then I took a breath, and then I vomited again.

Jen's reply was as true as true as true: "Yes, you can babe. It's going to pass. I know it's awful, but it will stop and you'll feel better."

And that's the thing. It stops. The better comes.

None of us like to vomit or feel like our heads are exploding or like someone is gleefully sticking their fingers up into our nostrils and poking around trying to find the valve marked MUCUS RELEASE! But we all love the moments when it clears, when we can breathe, eat, laugh, feel what good is, again.

So I'm really only regurgitating here when I write that wisdom is all about--or at least a little about--finding a way to hold onto the it will end! during the it's hurting!

In our illnesses, yes, but also in our work, in our writing, in our relationships, in our wounds, in our confusions. No pain has the power to wield a full attack forever. It stops. Somehow, in some way, it gives up. And what remains are not the trails of bacteria and germs and messy clothes and broken relationships. No. What remains is the way we've grown through the pain. The way we've learned just a little more about love.

This Ancient Game of Bowls

Yesterday evening, after Jen and I had given Tyler and five diggers a bath, I left our home on 1 Lesley Avenue to walk to the old church hall at St. Oswald's with a neighbour of ours named David.

A bit younger than my own grandfather, David is a kind man who walks with a cane, hefts a big smile everywhere he goes, and says that his main rule for living is the Golden One: You see, Luke, I treat everyone the way I'd right liked to be treated, mate. That's all it is.

And in David's life—along with his wife, Jill, and their daughter Gemma, who live two doors down—the Golden rule is indeed alive and well. Already, they've taken delight in Tyler, bringing him toys, inviting him over to feed their bunnies, and dropping off other odds and ends (including a delicious teddy-bear shaped cake for Tyler's birthday last weekend).

A lot of guys in my age group go out drinking at the pubs. But somehow, getting a tall pint (or two, or three) just never really feels like my cup of tea, so to speak. The loud noise, the effects on the wallet (thinking constantly, is this really a good use of money?), and the general sense that time might be better spent is usually triggered.

So it was that when David invited me to join the Fulford Bowls Club, I jumped at the prospect.

The church hall at St. Oswald's is much like many church halls in America, I suspect: decor from the 1970's, a bit of a musty smell, and its walls seem to wear the memories of a thousand different games and activities played by people of a hundred different ages.

Last night, after our ten minute walk to the hall from our homes, David and I walked in to find four men and four women already intent on their game of the bowls. I immediately noticed that "crown of wisdom" each soul there wore. Their white hair seemed more a promise of good stories and lives well lived than a disappointment. I felt, immediately, a sense that this would be a great Thursday night activity.

For two pounds, we bowled for two hours. Halfway through, we stop for tea and biscuits (I ate two of each)—and stories. I spoke with Ken, once a British soldier who was at Normandy and met many of the 101^st Airborn from America.

I met Henry, whose wife passed on 12 years prior, but whose smile remained.

I met Arthur, a man of few words who—one could easily tell—was the Keeper of the Bowl, so to speak. His was the duty to setup, ensure accuracy, and lend advice to the American newcomer to their game.

The object of Bowls is to get three of your large balls (each containing a bias, or heavy weight on one side) as close to a small ball (the jack) as possible. The jack is on one end of the long green mat, and you and the others gentlemen stand on another end and pitch balls and remark over one another's technique.

And I loved it.

I love it.

Walking home with David, I asked how long he had been coming to bowl at the church hall. "Oh, about 15 years, I'd say." Then, he looked at me out of the corner of his eye. "You like it, then, ey?"

"I love it," I replied.

"He smiled his massive smile and said, "You took to it like a duck to water."

And it was everything in me to not say, "The bowling was a hoot, but you and the others were what really made the night—your stories, your wisdom."

Even though we only lived two doors down, like a kind grandfather does, he watched and waited while I got inside our little home, excited to have found a new social group to hang with every Thursday night—even if they are twice (or three times) my age.