Upside Down
Dear _____,
Last week I told you about the ingenious games my brother and I would play with sheets of glass and existential panic. What can I say? We lived in the middle of nowhere. There was another game we played called "Dizzy Dizzy Land" where the four of us kids would clear the living room and then start twirling as fast as we could with our arms out yelling:
"Dizzy land! Dizzy land! Dizzy, Dizzy, DIZZY LAND!!!” We yelled and spun until we all fell over gasping, laughing and light-headed.
It was cathartic - I'm sure there's research that shows spinning regulates your nervous system, completes your body's stress cycle, or clears your energy. There's probably something fundamentally important to humans about participating in strategically induced disorientation and jacked-up equilibrium rituals within the safety of your family circle. It was a self-taught, self-led game we played which makes me appreciate the wisdom - and weirdness - of kids.
Anyways, these days, I'm living at home with my husband, our four year old son, and our two year old American Staffordshire named, Charlie. It's the week after Christmas. My son has a disgusting head cold. Me and my husband are riding out the disorientation of the holiday week and finding we aren’t used to this much downtime. It’s unnerving and we don't quite know what to do with ourselves. It's dark, it's cold, and nobody wants to go out except Charlie.
My son has also been struck with a dramatic case of malaise and what energy he does have is channeled into creating messes and mayhem, after which he breaks down crying for no reason. This goes on for some time, we go back and forth between pitying him (he is a small, sick, adorable child) and getting frustrated (the rudeness! The messes!).
Now he is rolling around whining again. Out of sheer desperation, I pick him up, and hold him upside down. He only resists a little. I walk him around the house with his head and arms drooping toward the floor, now he sees everything upside down. He forgets that he is mad at me, he forgets that he is sick, he forgets that he doesn't want to do anything.
I walk him to the nativity set he loves, we laugh as he clumsily tries to arrange the figurines and knocks them all over. I take him over to see his upside down reflection in the glass cabinets. I walk to the unlit fireplace and hold him upside down inside of it.
He perks up. Ah-ha! He's interested.
Can you see that little black handle? I ask. He can, but he is afraid to reach into the darkness and grab it. I set him on the floor to get a flashlight. We lean it against the bricks, aiming it upwards toward the cast iron flue, I show him how we can pull it down to open up the chimney.
Can you feel that breeze? He waves his hand through the invisible stream of cold air from outside: Yes.
That's called the draft, it comes out the chimney when we open the door. We shine the light up through the little door, blackened bricks zig-zag up two stories to a metal shaft with a bright light at the end.
That's up in the attic! I shout. I was excited, I'd never looked up the chimney before. I stuck his head in the fireplace again, upside down, and he stared up, entranced until . . .
I'm all done now, mom.
But I'm not done yet. I keep looking up the chimney until he starts to scoop the ashes into a brass bucket. He wears a blue face mask leftover from the pandemic. It's adorable.
Stand next to me, I say when he’s done.
Why?
Because you can see more different things from this angle. It's a new perspective. You can see the bricks going up.
What's an angle?
It just means if you stand somewhere different, you get a chance to see different things.
He is interested for a minute, then leaves me to my own pondering while he, though calmer, goes on to cause more mayhem. But I am thankful for the break.
Then, something else happens, it sets us off again. Sigh. He is tired. He is rude. He gets a timeout. We talk at each other and over each other. I try to convince him to take a bath. I get frustrated. I go upstairs alone, leaving the chaos behind for a few minutes. Until . . .
Mom, are you up there?
I think I had three minutes to myself. I wait longer than usual to reply. I contemplate ignoring him, or making a snarky comment. But, this time at least, I am better than that.
What's up, my love? I step out of the bathroom.
I wanted to show you something. He takes my hand in his damp little-kid hand.
Look how I can see all the pretty snow falling outside? He leads me to the window looking across the street to the forest.
Look at that one branch - it could be a water slide! I could slide right down it! He points. I crouch next to him, I see it too, a large pine branch has fallen and is stuck at a sharp angle, covered in snow.
If you were a little squirrel, you could wear little skis! I say, squeezing him tight.
I would fall right into the bushes! We laugh and go downstairs.
He can't pick me up and carry me around upside down, but when I was in my own funk . . . he calmly brought me to another room, had me look at something interesting and talk about it so that we could feel better. Soon, he asks if he can take a nap. He slept for a while, I wrote. Now, things have settled down, and I really couldn't be prouder of my kid.
I hope your week is not too crazy, but if it is, now you know what to do . . . just spin yourself around or hang upside down until you feel better.
;)
m
PS - who knows what the night will bring, maybe we will finally clear all these Legos to play a round of dizzy dizzy land.
PPS - That picture is of me and my mom when I was little. I wonder if she took me outside to look at the snow to calm me down? Wonder has a way of doing that.
I think I remember
This dream that I had
This love's gonna save us
From a world that's gone mad
I guess I just feel like
What happened to that
I guess I just feel like
The joke's getting old
The future is fading
And the past is on hold
But I know that I'm open
And I know that I'm free
And I'll always let hope in
Wherever I'll be
And if I go blind I'll still find my way
I guess I just felt like
Giving up today
(Today’s pick is from Sob Rock by John Mayer. It came out right when my son was born and we listened to it over and over while he was a baby.)