Darren and I recently had the opportunity as grandparents to watch our just barely one-year-old grandson for a weekend while the rest of his family took a trip.
Yes, we survived. (And our marriage did, too.)
One of Finn’s favorite tricks was to pull himself up to one of the big drawers in our kitchen that holds our pans and to steady himself as he opened and closed it. Back and forth and back and forth.
If the drawer was closed, he didn’t have enough drawer to hold to keep his balance. If it was opened too far, he would gently fall back to a sitting position. He had to have it opened just far enough in order to have the perfect hold AND the perfect balance.
An author I follow recently quoted Rebecca Solnit who said “Human infants are born with craniums made up of four plates that have not yet knit together into a solid dome so that their heads can compress to fit through the birth canal, so that the brain within can then expand. The seams of these plates are intricate, like fingers interlaced, like the meander of arctic rivers across tundra.
The skull quadruples in size in the first few years, and if the bones knit together too soon, they restrict the growth of the brain; and if they don’t knit at all the brain remains unprotected.
Open enough to grow and closed enough to hold together is what a life must also be.”
Open enough to grow and closed enough to hold together.
That’s it, right?
We need some structure and a bit of routine and a few beliefs and people and things to value and protect and hold us together. But we also need some freedom to grow and change and expand and serve and to be a little unrestricted and uncomfortable.
We aim to keep ‘the drawer’ of our life, so to speak, at the position that allows for both.
A fine balance, indeed.
Finn will soon be walking and will find other objects for his little baby brain’s fascination. Opening and closing things may still be one of them.
I can’t wait to hear about the ways you’re staying open enough to grow and closed enough to hold together. And if you’re stuck on either, I have hundreds of hours of experience with both.
I’d love to help.
