I've not been around little children for quite some time now, Bush, and you tend to forget how it is. There's a kind of magic that keeps happening, because magic for them is still possible. Watching those grandchildren of mine at play down at the beach, on the swings and slides, at home on the floor of our little cottage here, I realize to what extent they have the gift of being fully present to whatever it is they do--a gift we somehow lose on the way to adulthood, with all our guilt and shame and anger and second-guessing about the past, and all our worries and fears about the future. We forget that joy is all about the simple ability to be present.
You see it in their faces, Bush. In their eyes. There's a kind of total, unquestioning engagement in whatever is to hand. Nothing else matters but the moment. That's the magic. It's the same magic that we feel when making love. For a writer like myself, it's the magic that happens when the writing flows; for an artist, maybe, when the paint goes on the canvas. For a golfer or a tennis player, I presume, it's when they're "in the zone."
Every minute of that time is the experience of presence. Time passes, and you're not aware of its having passed. Hours later, perhaps, you return to common time, to the harriedness of life and all those things that need to be done. And you marvel at the magic that has happened.
Nothing equals this experience, Bush. You have to envy those wonderful kids for spending so much time there, because that's where creation happens, where invention happens. It's no coincidence that a man like Albert Einstein could be so child-like. Or the Dalai Lama. This kind of presence is also what the Buddha taught, and it's where the Dalai Lama teaches us to go to find the happiness he speaks so much about. Jesus, too, as I remember, was getting at something very similiar in his talk about the lilies of the field, "who toil not, neither do they spin."
Ah, well. It's a wonderful reminder, having those children here to teach me. I just wish I were as good a learner as they are teachers, Bush. Wouldn't that be something?
About Me
- Peter Clothier
- Born and raised in the UK, lives in Los Angeles, California. A writer about art and artists, essayist, social observer, daily meditator and student of the Buddhist dharma.. and a long-time recovering academic. Happily out of a "job" since 1986--but "works" every day. Father to three great kids (why don't we have a proper word for, um, middle-aged "children"?) and grandfather to four wonderful grandchildren. Even after all these years in America, he still speaks English.
4 comments:
Beautiful piece, Peter. Thanks for sharing.
Peter: Sounds like you're having a good time with the kids.
I was summing up the Bush years today, because of some things Senator Biden said the other night on Bill Maher. He was allowed to speak for more than thirty seconds and made a lot of sense. I never trusted him much before, but I liked everything he said. Strong, too, not wimpy as I supposed him to be till now. He was even swearing,,, he's pretty angry at them. He's running for pres, and I may have found the one to vote for and though I hate voting for politicians.
One interesting thing he said was that Oh, they (the Re-pub-tards) are looking around every which way to get out of Iraq. Sounded like he had information that the bush-babies are working like hell to get out!
But wait, that would make sense. The former cheerleader got back at Saddam for his dad, who probably always thought his kid was a wimp. Now Bush'll live like a big shot the rest of his days, continuing his phony opinion of himself. Cheney got his cronies the contracts they wanted. He's gotta be all pumped up about that. Pentagon guys are happy. They got another permanent military base in the world. They already have over a hundred and twenty. Everybody's happy. Their little war brought in the money they all wanted. Now they'll leave town for someone else to clean up the mess. Perfect scenario.
That really makes sense when you look at homeland security. Bush isn't interested in it. Leave that hard work for someone else to do. He got daddy's attention, which was he was out to prove. Now drop the ball again. That's just like him, a screw up,,, all his life. The screw-ups are always going for the big moneymaking deal. There is no money in homeland security for them. They are only interested in money, stealing it, not using it.
When we say, it was all about oil, we should say instead, it was all about money and an insecure wimp trying to impress his dad, and himself.
The prior was from me.
Nice to see that you are teaching them about love and patience:), and they are showing you their innocence...Lovely piece you brought us, thank you, enjoy them:).
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