I have an odd habit of taking snippets of video. The moments before a posed picture or just a survey shot of a room. The snippets are mostly of people when they are just living. Most are 3s to 20s. I remember talking to my Dad about a ten second video; one of my daughter as a newborn. Right after my sister had said to me “that was all the video.(sigh)” Well that was all you could manage to send digitally, easily, to normal, non-tech folks at the the time. Her comment of frustration and disbelief to a post partum me had me on a brink of my new om tipping point. You know, the type that ends up with you standing in a barrel of tears. Then, my Dad said, if he could have sent even just 3s of us home to him parents. Well, he choked up. He said “you know, I would have loved to have done that” and he continued “to send a video like that to my mother.” So, neither kid was at home this Mother’s Day morning, no Mom to call. Our son was on a school trip abroad, our daughter was at a prom sleepover, and my mother resides in a better realm. I thought I would be sad, I was not. There was a touching moment in a prayer that Kevin said over the Junior Prom goers last Saturday. His prayer reminded us to be thankful for all parents sacrifice and all the gifts we are given. Ahhh...the clarity. Life is about those tiny moments, sacrifices and gifts, especially those moments where all is well. So, I spent my quiet morning going through some sweet, snippet videos. Marveling at moments. Remembering the dearness of people. Being grateful for memories and thankful for all of the mothers who brought each of us here, especially for their sacrifices and their gifts. And, then of course, we went to the nursery to get some wonderful flowers.
We did not go to see Captain Marvel last night. Nope. By the time, our son got around to doing his piano, we were mad. He had a day off due to parent teacher meetings. He practiced one piece for 7 minutes. And, reported to his Dad, when he got home that he had ”done some.” He was acting like a few more minutes of polishing would do it. I lost it. In one of those epic, tell-all reveals that seem scripted. “Are you kidding me? ...7 minutes... the exam coming up...nothing memorized....always fooling around....why does it always come to this?” Then, Dad said “We shouldn’t go.” Boy, did that piano start working. The best practice I have heard in over 2 years. Going back to work in sections. No breaks. Same piece 5x, 7x as it was worked. I’d go to call out like I do, “There is no way you are done practicing” or “Okay, good job. Next piece” But before I could get the words out, our boy would go back and do more work on the piece he just played. Repeating and removing hesitations.
During all of the Marvelloso practice, his Dad and I had been texting. In our exchange, heated —no sense in lying to you all, I said “we have to not go. Move the tickets tomorrow. And, if he doesn’t practice again, we keep moving them.” We always give into our son. Because we want the thing that teaching him a lesson would deprive us of. We don’t have the schedule to go to a plan B. But we did yesterday. Our tenor teen, was so mad, “I did everything that you wanted. Let’s go”. I am so proud that his Dad said “Too late. We had already said the consequence and a last ditch effort to turn things around wasn’t going to change anything.” Or something like that. His Dad was in fine form. When a teen threw back, “I am SO mad at you”. Dad said, “I am SO mad at YOU. I wanted to go to the movies tonight after work. And, if you don’t practice tomorrow, we won’t go at all” All, I know is that was the best independent practice session I had ever heard from his middle school body. If Marvel could bottle it, parents would make them rich. Marvel Motivation - sprinkle some any time you want your kid to perform to their true potential.
Now that’s a superhero power I can relate to!
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Vulnerability during prayer. It should be a code we all honor I guess what really hit me is: To me, NZ is so far away. And if this type of senseless crime is happening there, then officially, it is happening everywhere.
We have a global problem. The second wave of colonialism; its lingering tail end is supremacy.
We have to stop teaching kids that others were conquered. Even the language of power and submission, recounted in school books,reinforces the same supremacists believe most of us consider to be extreme.
There is such vulnerability when we pray. It is a submission to a belief that we are not alone on this planet.
And, in those moments, regardless of your faith, those who wish to demonstrate their belief, should be safe.
It is a human moment that many of us share.
