Morning meditation: What I live for

If any one finds that he never reads serious literature, if all his reading is frothy and trashy, he would do well to try to train himself to like books that the general agreement of cultivated and sound-thinking persons has placed among the classics. It is as discreditable to the mind to be unfit for sustained mental effort as it is to the body of a young man to be unfit for sustained physical effort.
-- Theodore Roosevelt

Master M-mv, reading over my shoulder, "'The classics.' 'Sustained physical effort.' Hmmmm. I've got it all going on, huh?"

I turn to observe him, and he grins at me over his big bowl of cereal.

"Are you supposed to be reading over my shoulder?" He takes an exaggerated step away from my desk.

"Well," he continues, "Don't I?" He flexes his free arm as he turns to make his way back out to the kitchen.

Summer swim team and the assertion of some nearly forgotten portion of the gene pool carved his thin, young arms into thick ropes of muscle over the last few months, and the many long hours of practice reshaped his back into an enviable V. As for "sustained mental effort," Master M-mv's summer reading list was two parts "serious literature" (e.g., Shakespeare) to one part "froth and trash" (e.g., Stephen King novels and comic books). But what this man-child has "going on" is something other than an athletic build and a firm grasp on his studies. It's...

"Good morning, Boy-boy," sings Miss M-mv(i) as she sails past. (We have already exchanged morning words and embraces.) "I love you!"

"Right back at you!" he says through a mouthful of his second bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios.

"Boy-boy! I love you, too!" calls Miss M-mv(ii) from down the hall. "Good morning!"

"Hello, I love you! Do you need help making your bed? Let me finish my cereal, and I'll be right there."

"And what can I get you from the cabinet?" he asks Miss M-mv(i), handing her a clean cereal bowl. A flurry of activity and kind words exchanged, then, "Hey, do you need a yogurt, Mom? I can bring that to you."

"Well?" he repeats, handing me my yogurt, tiny chocolate chips sprinkled on top. He flexes his other arm at me and grins in the half-frame it creates. "I'm a pretty decent combination of mind and muscle, eh?"

Without waiting for an answer, he pads down to his sister's room to help her with her morning chores. I hear giggling and suspect that she's watching not working, but he won't betray her.

"Yes, you are," I say softly to the flickering screen of my laptop. "You are a pretty decent combination of mind and muscle, and you have it all going on."

He is kind and polite and easy in his skin. He is smart and funny and attentive to others' needs. He is affable and confident and aware of his power to lead and influence. He uses all of these gifts well; in fact, he uses them better than anyone Mr. M-mv and I have ever known.

And, remembering that we are letting go of our children from the moment we first hold them in our arms, I refuse to cry over the baby, toddler, and little boy who live now only in my mind's memory rooms. I resist the urge to slam shut the door to the room waiting for the man-child. Yes, the man is waiting to assert himself, and any month or week now, the man-child will finish ascending the stairs to his memory room. I'll do nothing to stop him.

Even if I could.

Until then, though...

"You may have it all going on, young man," I call down the hall, "but you also have socks on your bedroom floor, toothpaste on the bathroom counter, a dirty bowl in the sink, and a math paper to review."

Master M-mv pokes his head out of his sister's room. "'Can't fool me, Mom. You're being all stern and upset 'cause you just realized how much you're going to miss me when I leave." He chuckles and kisses the top of my head on the way to his room.

"Hey! Mom?" he calls over his shoulder. "When you're done blogging, can I borrow the laptop?"

I sit down hard in the rocking chair in the living room and a few moments later the chore-dodger (Miss M-mv(ii)) crawls into my big lap. "I love you, Mom."

"And I love you, sweetie."

"Do you guys smell the rain?" Miss M-mv(i) calls from the dining room. "That's one of my favorite scents in the world. I'm going to draw what that smell looks like."

And I'm going to write what this feels like, I thought. It won't work. Only I will appreciate it, really. Most folks will get to this point of today's entry and wonder, "Where is the RDA? the article link? the books? the wry observation? the field trip?"

Sorry, folks.

Some days it's just this. And this is what I live for.

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Added later: For more entries like this, see our "Thoughts on education and parenting."