A reporter once asked Johnny Cash for his definition of paradise. Johnny’s reply was beautiful. “This morning, with her, having coffee.” He was speaking, of course, about paradise being that moment with his wife, June Carter Cash. Most Friday mornings are paradise to me. My husband tries to either work from home on Fridays or at least allow a more relaxed start to the day, which is how we found ourselves sitting in our bedroom this morning, having coffee, and watching Touched by an Angel. If you’re a repeat column customer, you know I can be a bit stingy with the funds. We cut the cable cord many years ago. Honestly, we rarely watch television at all. When we do, we use our handy dandy digital antennae to pluck Start TV out of the mysterious airwaves. Turns out, the mister loves old 90s TV shows as much as I do. Touched by an Angel was a tearjerker today. It got us both emotionally sideways with the introspection of free will and love for your enemies. The sun was shining outside the window. The birds were chirping. I asked him an odd question. “Isn’t it funny how life is so stinking busy when you’re young? You know the birds are chirping, but you don’t have the time or the patience to care. Then, one day you wake up and say, ‘Wow, isn’t that a cedar waxwing and aren’t they already supposed to be in South America by now?’” How does this happen?
I remember hearing old folks (meaning anyone over the age of 30) say this to me when I was a child. My parents said it to my children. Now it’s my own voice offering up this tired rhetoric when my grandchildren race through the house. It goes a little something like this. “I wish I had that much energy. If I could bottle up some of that energy, we’d be millionaires. Hey little so and so, got any of that energy to spare?” Because, children never stop. They run faster, stomp harder, yell louder, and pounce quicker than anything known to mankind. They are tireless. They don’t need no stinkin’ naps. Forget sugar and puppy dog tails, children are made of batteries that never lose a charge and the word why. They are equal parts Tigger and Pterodactyl with their constant bouncing and shrieking. They blow down doors like little bad wolves and tumbleweed through our living rooms so fast, we only know they were here by the muddy footprints and sticky popsicle marks they leave on the floors and drawers of our lives. They have perpetual gum in their hair and pigmented juice dye permanently etched in the corners of their mouths. They wake up at 1000%. They go to bed at night still at 1000%. They have no time, either. They can’t stop to listen to a story, to a train, to a coyote howling in the river basin, to a bird chirping, or to a storm rolling in from the north. But, it’s not their fault. Bodies grow. Minds do, too. I reckon that takes a considerable amount of energy to fuel those muscles and develop those bones. All the new words they must learn and the new concepts they’re expected to understand and the new skills they need to master – that takes so much. And, maybe that is why children are just… so much. But, like Stevie Nicks says, “Time makes you bolder. Even children get older. I’m getting older, too.”
I dare say my brain has surpassed the pinnacle of its development. Sure, I still push it past its comfortable limit as often as I can, but I think this mature dog has learned all the tricks she plans on learning. Lord knows my muscles and bones are no longer in their prime. Things start to ache on the backside of 50. Physicians begin using words like brittle, compromised, and inflammation around this time. I must think about the times I need energy so I can conserve it during other parts of my day. Those naps the young’uns despise are so necessary now. I look forward to the end of the day, snuggled up with my dogs and a good episode of Columbo. There are no periods of bouncing and shrieking for me, these days. My walks are purposeful. My movements have intent. All these factors mean my life is peppered with the luxury of time. I’m no longer a tumbleweed. I’m a wheel with a partial flat. As I roll and teeter and fall over sometimes, my slower speed gives me a wonderful vantage point and a superpower. I can sit. I can slow down. I notice things like new roses blooming, rabbits hopping in tall grass, and birds chirping. When the storms roll in from the north, I use all the energy I saved to race to the front porch and sit on the swing. I am content. Christian hip hop artist Lecrae said this recently, on the topic of life. “Contentment is a beautiful thing. Don’t spend so much time chasing what’s out there that you don’t appreciate what’s right here.” God bless the children with the unlimited energy. God bless those with the patience to remind them about the birds.
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