Moments

So much of my daily life is moments. I cannot live my life looking at the chaos that naturally accompanies home schooling. I like things neat and organized and placed and definite. Home schooling for my family is nothing like that. We are never finished, never done, never clean, never neat, and rarely ever organized. Instead we are messy, chaotic, disorganized, random, and constant. I have often wondered how it is that I have stumbled into this life, because it was not planned.  I have made it all up as I go along, adding children into our family, deciding to home school, altering my ambitions to fit my family's needs. Focus is pretty essential to me, and in order to make it through my day I have a fairly narrow focus. I have found that I take pictures the way I manage my life: of moments, close up, where my children's faces are the focus and block out everything else. Like this one, of MOS, pouring water over his head. 

I love this picture, but what you can't see is the mess in my backyard from kids' toys, shoes, baby doll strollers, blankets, buckets, balls, bats, shovels, pails, etc. that are picked up about once a week and then migrate to cover our entire yard within a few days. But in this picture, all I see is a moment. A moment of fun for my son, who was enjoying himself so much with a tupperware container full of water and a measuring cup. GG3 was there, too, and it was such a treat for me to have just the two of them and to let them do an activity by themselves. The older girls were at my parents' house.

I have to live my life focused on my children, their faces, on their actions in that particular moment, ignoring the chaos of papers and crayons and cereal and mess and bits of projects and books and the effluvium of home school life that swirls around me. I look at their minute actions, at the moment of life right now that I am living with them.  I must exist only in snippets of time, moments of action, particles of being, because to look around me at the swirling, whirling, noise, cacophony that is my life would overwhelm me. The filthy baseboards, the neglected toilets, the piles of stinking laundry that should have been washed last week, the grime in the corners of the kitchen, the dog hair tumbling down the hardwood floors of the hallway as I walk. But I can't stop to pick it up now, sweep it, mop it, scrub it, spiff it. My children are calling, to be read to, change a diaper, look at a bug, notice a flower, climb a tree, sprinkle water on a spot of dry grass, blow bubbles, admire a rock, or just to sit and notice the clouds that look like ponies or unicorns or dinosaurs. There is music to play, paintings to create, clay to sculpt, tears to dry, shapes to sort, colors to learn. So much to do, so much to notice, so many demands on me that I am bowed underneath them. But I stand tall, shrug all the sharp and prickly demands off my shoulders and instead notice only the moment, the tiny sliver of time, the here and now, the laughter as I tickle a toddler's ribs, the nose I wipe, the pages of a book I turn.

Because moments are all I have right now. Perhaps all I will ever have, because as my children grow up and away and leave me, I will be alone with only these memories to hold me through my decrepitude. The floors will still be dirty when they are gone, the mold in the shower still green and vile, the kitchen cabinets oddly black in places, and the refrigerator shelves furry. But my babies will be gone, never to return, raising their own children, living their own exciting lives, full of moments for them to cherish. I will be a visitor in their houses, the houses of my grown children, holding my grandchildren. I will be a welcome visitor but an interloper nonetheless. But this time is my time, as the Goonies said, "Down here, it's our time!" Right here, right now. This is my time, the only time I have been given with these children. To do chores is essential, to train my children up in keeping house is necessary, but so too is my enjoyment of them. So, too, is my delight in their explorations, their learning, their childhoods. Because this time is my time, my time to live a perfect life, amidst the imperfections of daily life: the mess, grime, dirt, chaos, disordered bookshelves, toys strewn about every room, including the back yard, the loudness of children clopping around the house all day. My time, never to be repeated, never to be achieved again. A perfect distillation of fulfillment: this moment right now, with my children gathered around me, as we read once again the story of that frog or the pig or the house or whatever book has captured their fancy today. We sit on the couch, the destruction of morning playtime littering the carpet and we read. Pressed against me, lolling back against the cushions, the baby is restless but still wants to listen. A finger points to a picture, a question is asked, and my life slows down and centers on this moment. It won't last long, perhaps a few minutes, before the wiggling and giggling begin and it's off to something else, picking up toys, straightening the bookshelf, putting lunch in the oven. But the moment has happened and I have noticed it, acknowledged it, and stored it away in my heart, to ponder over some distant day when my babies are all grown and I am alone. To be warmed by the memories that I am making now and harboring in my heart. God has blessed me richly, far more than I deserve, far more than I ever imagined. What does a sinner such as I deserve? Definitely not this life. Definitely not four children and the opportunity to home school them, to luxuriate in them every day, to live through and despite the chaos, through and around the mess and disorganization. To kiss my husband good bye as he goes to work each morning and turn to the children and say, "Let's get started with our day!" Only a little while, only a few more years do I have with them. And then they will be older, and I will be old, and we will have all moved on to a new stage of life. I will welcome that, as well, but right now is my time. And I am grateful for it.