Two Words

Yep, that's the face.

It is generally understood that most children (and parents) undergo a degree of decompression as they leave the hectic school year behind and enter the realm of those golden months of summer.  Early mornings, busy schedules, and revolving deadlines are traded in for a more relaxed pace of life and significantly more free time.  This is what we’ve all been waiting for.  That is... until our sweet little cherubs, who have anticipated this emancipation for months, utter those 2 dreaded words.  “I’m bored”. 

Lest you think that the shift from school year to summer vacation is any less of an adjustment for those of us who have school in our homes during the year, take heart.  You are not alone.  Our children know the drill.  We typically don’t watch TV during the week, and they are in the habit of spending their abundant free time reading, creating, playing music, getting muddy in the creek,  and designing and implementing battle plans upon each other and their friends.  But something magical (hmmm) has happened in the last weeks.  As our outside commitments and internal schooling expectations have come to a creeping pace, there has been a shift.  My children, who have the skills, raw materials, and experience in creating their own adventures, seem to have regressed. 

 A few mornings ago, as I was basking in the luxury of enjoying a cup of coffee and time alone on our porch,  I became somewhat sentimental.  Having married a man with 2 young children, then adding 3 more to the crowd, I have had little people in my life for the past 18 years.  Our entire married life has been one of parenting.  For the first time, we don’t have babies.  We don’t have teenagers.  Our big kids are growing into delightful adults and my youngest is 7.  Old enough to sleep beyond 6:30 in the morning.  Finally.  I don’t have to rise before dawn to have time alone.  We’re in a sweet window of family life.  The summer has come.  Relief from schedule.  Fun outings planned and great books to be read as a family in the weeks to come.  As I was reflecting on how grateful I am for such a delight-filled season, Sam, my big-blue-eyed 9 year old, entered the scene.  It was 9am.  He proclaimed “I’m bored.”

As fate (or more likely Providence) would have it, my 20 minutes of contemplative reading for the day was surprisingly relevant.  In Buechner’s “Listening to Your Life", he observes, “You can be bored by virtually anything if you put your mind to it, or choose not to.  You can yawn your way through Don Giovanni or a trip to the Grand Canyon or an afternoon with your dearest friend or a sunset.  There are doubtless those who nodded off at the coronation of Napoleon or the trial of Joan of Arc or when Shakespeare appeared at the Globe in Hamlet or Lincoln delivered himself of a few remarks at Gettysburg.  The odds are that the Sermon on the Mount had more than a few of the congregation twitchy and glassy-eyed.  To be bored is to turn down cold whatever life happens to be offering you at the moment.”

Isn’t that the truth?  As adults, we often live our lives in much the same way.  We’re bored.  Only we’re too sophisticated to use the word.  So we submit to the mindset without even knowing it.  We spend our days longing for (or regretting) our past.  Or we live in a state of waiting for (or fearing) the future.  We too miss the beauty that each moment of the day has to offer. 

“Bored” provides it’s own sense of security.  It doesn’t require of me.  It’s familiar.  It’s easy.  I trade in my books (or art, or music) for the TV.  I give concentrated chunks of time to returning email (or whatever else we find to do on the computer), yet rarely build that kind of time in my day to play with my children or talk with my husband.  I can keep my schedule so full of good things that I miss the best things.

So maybe, just maybe, our children become bored because they’ve (gasp) learned it from us.  Our busy schedules and addictions to our Blackberrys and iphones provide a constant stream of stimulation from the outside world.  Rather than experiencing the full range of vibrancy that life has to offer, we settle for the counterfeit and live life being entertained.  This can come in the form of a video game for my children… or in the the form of a favorite nightly TV show.  Neither is implicitly a bad thing.  That is, unless it soaks  up  my time and energy which prevents me from growing, creating, and exploring.  From becoming all that I was created to be.

As I hope to encourage my children to be grateful for and bask in what each day, even each moment, has to offer, I hope to do so myself.  I want to live life wide-eyed enough to view my everyday with a sense of anticipation.  Yet to do so requires discipline to be still.  The courage to hope for more.  And the willingness to be proactive in pursuing that which brings me great joy.

So as you launch into the heart of the summer, my hope for you is the same.  That you find time to be still.  That you discover (or remember) whatever it is that brings you joy.  That you wake up in the morning with the wonder of a child. Read a great book.  Take a class.  Try something new.  Notice the miracles that occur in your everyday.

Happy summer to you and yours!