Architecture

In college, I could never make it to class or do any work when the weather was beautiful, or when a fantastic new experience beckoned. I believed that life was short (and it had been), that today could be my last (which is true), and that I should spend it joyful (and I did). After twenty three years (give or take a few weeks) of living for the day, I kept not dying (which was a good thing). I realized that, though I could die, at any moment (which is true) probability was on the side that I would probably wake up alive the next morning (so far, so good). So I left my ephemeral days behind and set out to make something a little more permanent out of my days that just seemed to keep on coming. I began to work, adding the days up to something bigger than a day. It felt good, I had momentum. I was an architect of something important. But building has its downside too, and part of the spontaneity and joy was the marrow of my life was slipping away. The days kept adding up, but when you have more of something, each part seems smaller.

And then something remarkable happened: I had Owen (and later, Errol) and something very biological and raw overtook my mind. I felt like my building was done (my biological duty had been completed, the genes passed on) and that I could crawl off and die fulfilled. But, at the same time, because of my love for my boys, I had never felt more of a reason to live. Nature was done with me, but I was only just getting started.

Which brings us back to the start. Now that I was done building, Owen and Errol taught me, once again, how to live in the moment.

At first, a child’s mind is not equipped to think beyond the moment, the present is hard enough. And so that is precisely where they dwell, right between before and after. And how they inhabit the moment! (Which can be awful, when you are sick and exhausted and their bodies have been inhabited by demon banshees, and the moment stretches out ahead of you endlessly.) But mostly there are those glorious moments when you lose yourself in their joy, which becomes yours. You don’t live vicariously, you live. Today, Errol on the swing, laughing until his voice became hoarse. Loving this new sensation of hurtling through the air at full speed. With the wind in his hair (and this, a boy who can’t even crawl!) suddenly propelled into the air, laughing, and laughing, and laughing. It was a rare and beautiful space he pulled me into as I pushed him. And I never would have, without him, been a part of that flow. And then there is Owen who I tickle until he can not stand it, and then I tickle him some more, just to the point of ecstasy. His laughter melds with my own as we howl and roll on the bed outside of the trap of time. These boys bring me the greatest, simplest joy. The most joy of my life since I too was a boy. I am so grateful to them for what they give me. And Errol, dear Errol, as much as he is growing up and getting better, I think (and hope) that he will always live a great deal of his life in the moment. And Owen, sweet Owen, is lucky, like us, to have, beautiful Errol who will help lead us back to that happy moment on the swing, again, and again.