01 feb 2004
Beginnings
by Julia Jergensen Edelman
At any moment we can
begin anew, start anew, shine anew.
—Birdgirl
I don't know who Birdgirl is. But I ran
across her message one day, inscribed in
a boulder at the end of a spiral of large
rocks in the middle of a woods. I was on
a nature walk with a friend; a weekly two
hour gift that I give myself, and after
we oohed and aahed and puzzled over who
would have gone to the pains of etching
a message on a boulder, transporting it
to the woods, and rolling it to its final
resting spot, I found that I later couldn't
shake the message.
We can begin again.
From scratch; with a clean slate. It all
sounds so... hopeful and zen-like; the beauty
of each fresh moment is in its nothingness,
it's temporality; its fleet-footedness.
But the real beauty in newness is that it
can happen at any time, anywhere. It doesn't
have to be reserved for January 1st, the
ascribed New Year of the Western World,
or for Simchat Torah, the day that practicing
Jews roll back their holy book and begin
again, with the Creation story.
Start anew.
Take, for example, your average day of parenting.
There are days—often—when our
three-year-old Jonah is surly before his
feet even touch the floor. "Jonah,"
I'll say on a good day, when I've gotten
more than 6 hours of sleep and am feeling
particularly centered, "let's start
this day over again. 1-2-3—Good Morning!"
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
Twenty minutes later we're at the breakfast
table and bickering erupts over who gets
the red plastic cereal bowl with the built-in
straw, or who gets to sit next to the cat.
"Wait a minute, let's start this over,"
I'll say. Sometimes it works, sometimes
it doesn't.
Or, "Zander, you don't even like pancakes,"
I'll hear Jonah begin, and before I launch
into a soliloquy about the fundamentals
of the human mind, and that it's impossible
to tell someone what he or she thinks about
something, I am sometimes able to connect
with my inner wisdom and take us all down
a different road. "Okay, guys, let's
just stop for a minute and think. Is this
how we want to begin our day?"
Shine Anew
When we teach ourselves and our kids that
we can actually stop, calm ourselves, and
start over, we teach them to be winners-to
rise above, and conquer their demons, whether
they be negative feelings toward another
person, or a mounting foul mood.
I'm in the midst of helping my children
find calming techniques they can use during
times of intense negative emotion. Zander,
our son with a musical bent, may find his
solace in "The Magic Flute." And
Jonah is trying to learn the fine art of
counting to 10, or hugging his stuffed Dalmatian.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
But what about us—the adults in this
great folly? How do we replenish and rejuvenate
ourselves? How do we begin again, for the
15th time, when it's only 10 in the morning?
That's when I try to heed my own advice.
If it's a good day, and I've gotten enough
sleep, I visualize the spiral of rocks in
the woods, and the cryptic message at the
boulder at the end. And I thank Birdgirl
for the reminder that I can shine anew.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
May your New Year be filled with renewal,
hope, and lots of beginnings.
Julia Jergensen Edelman is a columnist
and the editor of The Phoenix Newspaper.
She has two sons, Zander, 7, and Jonah,
5, who provide her with food for writing,
and the impetus to embrace each day. |
