Face to Face
Twice this week I had the pleasure of enjoying the suddenly spring weather with two close friends. It feels a little like I won the lottery. Sun that actually feels warm on my face. And girl time. All we did was walk, with at least one kid and a dog in tow. But the feeling of wide open space. fresh air and a good heart-to-heart is hard to beat.
It's easy for me to keep up with my friends via social media. We text, email, call, Facebook, and Facetime. We can make plans simply by leaving alternating messages on each other's answering machines: "Hi T, it's me. Just wondering if...." / "Hi Sara, it's T. I think that could work. Just call me back when you get a chance. / "Hi T, sounds good. I guess I'll see you Friday." It's truly convenient, but sometimes we busy grown ups think that the uber-communication social media offer is just as good as physically being together. I'm discovering it's really not. In this busy, crazy phase of life it is absolutely necessary for me to drop my first set of plans when someone calls on a brisk April morning and says, "Want to take a walk?" Yes, yes, yes! I would much rather walk with you than run errands or sweep my disgusting floors.
And while we are trying to chat and walk, the dog will pull me all over the place. He will poop at the public library. I will end up carrying my daughter piggy back and trying to manage a leash at the same time. I will hand my friend B the helmet and the scooter to carry. We will walk at a snail's pace stopping to observe the footprint stamped in concrete, the ancient wrought iron fence missing a finial, and the trash on the ground. We will suffer all those inconveniences and at the end of it all, we will hug and go our separate ways and feel so very full. "I've been missing my friends," confessed B this morning. So have I. So very much. And while I'm confessing, I miss our families like crazy. My sisters. Oh, I need a good long dose of all three of them. All of us together with no agenda other than laughter and food, of course. A big plate of Mom's spaghetti?
It's amazing to me how we can move through life, people crowded around us at all times and still feel isolated. It's the common plight of at-home motherhood. (You would laugh to see me trap the UPS guy at the front door with the mindless chatter of utter desperation.) But I think it's also becoming the common plight in general. As the role of social media continues to expand in our daily lives, I see that humans were made to be in community with one another. We weren't created for isolation and self reliance (sorry Thoreau and Emerson), but for community and interdependence. When I'm sitting at the park or the dance studio or swim lessons I see moms and dads glued to their iPhone screens, and kids glued to their iPads. And we're all sitting elbow to elbow in the same space, faces tilted toward that blueish glow instead of toward each other.
Too bad. We can learn a thing or two from toddlers just discovering the people around them. Until about the age of three, kids are content to play next to one another rather than together. K is fast developing an awareness of his relationship to others and their relationship to him. Like my girls, this manifests itself in curious staring, early attempts to engage peers in play or conversation, and in greeting perfect strangers wherever we go (so maybe the girls were less likely to do that part!). K is beginning to notice, for example, when other people stare at him. And this is somewhat complicated, since their staring is often prompted by the differences in his appearance, something he has no awareness of at this point and maybe never will. Kids around E's age through upper elementary school do it the most. Sometimes I catch adults starting, too. I get it. There aren't a lot of children with Down syndrome around anymore, thanks to prenatal detection. So while it's common to bump into adults with Down syndrome now and again, bumping into a child with Down syndrome is somewhat unique.
I've been a little troubled about how to handle these long gazes. Do I respond? And how long do I let the stranger and K stare at one another before I do something? And what do I do? Do I make a joke? Move K along? Smile and make the gazer uncomfortable by showing that I noticed her staring at my son? What, really, is the best approach?
I recently concluded that the best approach was to teach K to greet a person who stares at him. When we meet someone for the first time, a simple "Hi, how are ya?" is typically a good ice breaker. When K notices someone's interest in him and stares back, I say, "Kaleb, say hello!" Then I smile at the gazer. What it all means underneath its casual surface is, "Hi! I see you! This is my son. He has a name. He can speak. He's just like you. Cool, eh?" I hope that in that moment of face to face connection, the curious child, the gawking adult will recognize not difference but mutuality. I hope this will help K when he's older, too--if and when he realizes for the first time why perfect strangers stare, look, and look again. He has the power to create a moment of human connection. And he has permission to assume the best of the onlookers who probably mean no harm, but for whom K is not a familiar part of their landscapes.
Spending quality time cultivating friendships, being friendly with people you don't know well, watching small children navigate the complexity of social engagement is all part of being human together, created as we were to live not just in the presence of others, but with them. Without that, there can be no empathy. There can be no compassion. No understanding. No acceptance. Social media, this blog, is no substitute for the real time human interaction we crave and need. Without it, we become less like ourselves and more like automatons moving through time and space. With it, we have eyes to see and ears to hear and hearts to feel. It's spring, and I'm thinking that maybe creating a to-do list longer than Jack's beanstalk isn't the best way to emerge from my winter blues. Maybe I'd be better off throwing a block party.
I get a little blue this time of the year. And I get ridiculously restless. I make long to do lists and I start multiple projects at once. I barrage my husband with ideas for our immediate future as well as hopes for ten years from now. Just today I left a collection of suggestions for career growth at his seat at the dinner table. He laughed and took it in stride. I'm ready to get up and get moving. But spring is the ultimate trickster here in New England, taunting us with blue skies and mild temperatures one day, only to unleash its true self in mud and sleet and wind the next. I've been trying to practice gratitude. I've been trying to remain calm. Reasonable. This week, the real gifts came not in checking things off my list, but in the opportunities to reconnect with some of my favorite fellow mamas. And in the gift of my children, whose unfolding lives continually challenge me to see the world in new and better ways.
It's easy for me to keep up with my friends via social media. We text, email, call, Facebook, and Facetime. We can make plans simply by leaving alternating messages on each other's answering machines: "Hi T, it's me. Just wondering if...." / "Hi Sara, it's T. I think that could work. Just call me back when you get a chance. / "Hi T, sounds good. I guess I'll see you Friday." It's truly convenient, but sometimes we busy grown ups think that the uber-communication social media offer is just as good as physically being together. I'm discovering it's really not. In this busy, crazy phase of life it is absolutely necessary for me to drop my first set of plans when someone calls on a brisk April morning and says, "Want to take a walk?" Yes, yes, yes! I would much rather walk with you than run errands or sweep my disgusting floors.
And while we are trying to chat and walk, the dog will pull me all over the place. He will poop at the public library. I will end up carrying my daughter piggy back and trying to manage a leash at the same time. I will hand my friend B the helmet and the scooter to carry. We will walk at a snail's pace stopping to observe the footprint stamped in concrete, the ancient wrought iron fence missing a finial, and the trash on the ground. We will suffer all those inconveniences and at the end of it all, we will hug and go our separate ways and feel so very full. "I've been missing my friends," confessed B this morning. So have I. So very much. And while I'm confessing, I miss our families like crazy. My sisters. Oh, I need a good long dose of all three of them. All of us together with no agenda other than laughter and food, of course. A big plate of Mom's spaghetti?
It's amazing to me how we can move through life, people crowded around us at all times and still feel isolated. It's the common plight of at-home motherhood. (You would laugh to see me trap the UPS guy at the front door with the mindless chatter of utter desperation.) But I think it's also becoming the common plight in general. As the role of social media continues to expand in our daily lives, I see that humans were made to be in community with one another. We weren't created for isolation and self reliance (sorry Thoreau and Emerson), but for community and interdependence. When I'm sitting at the park or the dance studio or swim lessons I see moms and dads glued to their iPhone screens, and kids glued to their iPads. And we're all sitting elbow to elbow in the same space, faces tilted toward that blueish glow instead of toward each other.
Too bad. We can learn a thing or two from toddlers just discovering the people around them. Until about the age of three, kids are content to play next to one another rather than together. K is fast developing an awareness of his relationship to others and their relationship to him. Like my girls, this manifests itself in curious staring, early attempts to engage peers in play or conversation, and in greeting perfect strangers wherever we go (so maybe the girls were less likely to do that part!). K is beginning to notice, for example, when other people stare at him. And this is somewhat complicated, since their staring is often prompted by the differences in his appearance, something he has no awareness of at this point and maybe never will. Kids around E's age through upper elementary school do it the most. Sometimes I catch adults starting, too. I get it. There aren't a lot of children with Down syndrome around anymore, thanks to prenatal detection. So while it's common to bump into adults with Down syndrome now and again, bumping into a child with Down syndrome is somewhat unique.
I've been a little troubled about how to handle these long gazes. Do I respond? And how long do I let the stranger and K stare at one another before I do something? And what do I do? Do I make a joke? Move K along? Smile and make the gazer uncomfortable by showing that I noticed her staring at my son? What, really, is the best approach?
I recently concluded that the best approach was to teach K to greet a person who stares at him. When we meet someone for the first time, a simple "Hi, how are ya?" is typically a good ice breaker. When K notices someone's interest in him and stares back, I say, "Kaleb, say hello!" Then I smile at the gazer. What it all means underneath its casual surface is, "Hi! I see you! This is my son. He has a name. He can speak. He's just like you. Cool, eh?" I hope that in that moment of face to face connection, the curious child, the gawking adult will recognize not difference but mutuality. I hope this will help K when he's older, too--if and when he realizes for the first time why perfect strangers stare, look, and look again. He has the power to create a moment of human connection. And he has permission to assume the best of the onlookers who probably mean no harm, but for whom K is not a familiar part of their landscapes.
Spending quality time cultivating friendships, being friendly with people you don't know well, watching small children navigate the complexity of social engagement is all part of being human together, created as we were to live not just in the presence of others, but with them. Without that, there can be no empathy. There can be no compassion. No understanding. No acceptance. Social media, this blog, is no substitute for the real time human interaction we crave and need. Without it, we become less like ourselves and more like automatons moving through time and space. With it, we have eyes to see and ears to hear and hearts to feel. It's spring, and I'm thinking that maybe creating a to-do list longer than Jack's beanstalk isn't the best way to emerge from my winter blues. Maybe I'd be better off throwing a block party.
I get a little blue this time of the year. And I get ridiculously restless. I make long to do lists and I start multiple projects at once. I barrage my husband with ideas for our immediate future as well as hopes for ten years from now. Just today I left a collection of suggestions for career growth at his seat at the dinner table. He laughed and took it in stride. I'm ready to get up and get moving. But spring is the ultimate trickster here in New England, taunting us with blue skies and mild temperatures one day, only to unleash its true self in mud and sleet and wind the next. I've been trying to practice gratitude. I've been trying to remain calm. Reasonable. This week, the real gifts came not in checking things off my list, but in the opportunities to reconnect with some of my favorite fellow mamas. And in the gift of my children, whose unfolding lives continually challenge me to see the world in new and better ways.
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| Kids enjoying a little face-to-face time. :) |
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