childhood

things I want to tell my children but might forget – dressing

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Dressing

Out of the bath, it’s time to get dressed.  I bet you love dressing up.  Whether you are a child or an adult, dressing is a great activity.  Let me tell you some more about dressing.

Well first, let’s be clear that there is a continuum of dressing fun (a continuum is a wide range on an imaginary line).  On one end, there’s clothes just for being covered and keeping warm.  We are lucky that we have enough clothes to always wear a top and bottoms and shoes, and to keep warm.  Then along the continuum we have all sorts of extra things that we can do with clothes.  We can have clothes for different activities, for gardening, swimming, gymnastics, dancing, climbing mountains, even going to the moon.  Then as we go further along the continuum right towards the other end we have clothes that say something.  What can clothes say? I hear you ask.  Well, this is something very interesting.  Imagine you had two outfits, one was a plain top and jeans, and one was a top with a sunshine on and jeans.  The outfit you might pick on a particular day might depend on a few things.  Let’s have a think about what these clothes might say.

So, why might you pick sunshine top?  Well, you might be feeling particularly happy, and want to celebrate it by wearing a sunshine.  Or you might be feeling a bit sad, but then think that wearing a sunshine all day would help you to feel happier.  Or you might be about to see a friend that day who’s nickname is ‘sunshine’, in which case wearing your top might be like a joke or a wink.  Or you might be about to see some friends who need perking up, in which case a sunshine top might do the trick.  Can you see that in each case your top is trying say something?  ‘I am happy’, ‘I am hopeful of being happy’, ‘ha! I was thinking of you when I got dressed’, or ‘there is something to be happy about’.

Now this is only a very simple example.  In fact there are infinite things that clothes can say (infinite means more than can ever be counted).  For example, say you wanted to wear your Batman outfit.  Perhaps this can say ‘I want to be like Batman, to be brave and rescue people who are in danger.’  Or you might want to wear a vet outfit.  Perhaps this can say “I love animals and like practising for being a grown-up’.

One particular outfit that you will have to wear one day is what is called a school uniform.  When people go to school, they often have to wear special clothes so that they look the same as each other.  Now that we’ve thought of some of the things clothes can say, it might be a bit funny to think of everyone wearing the same.  But there are some very clever reasons for a school uniform.  The first one is to build what is called ‘esprit de corps’.  This is a French phrase which means literally ‘the spirit of the body’, but sometimes it is called ‘team spirit.’  What this means is that instead of everyone all being their own individual selves, doing and wearing whatever they like, they choose to act together (like a body!).  This means that they will be kind to each other, and to work towards goals that they share.  You can see that in a school, this could be useful.  Everyone has a common goal (learning) and wearing the uniform helps everyone to recognise that.  In a way a school uniform is saying its own thing, ‘we are here to learn’.  There are some other useful reasons for a school uniform.  It makes it simple to get ready for school because you don’t spend time wondering what to wear.  It also means that when some people have more money and some people have less money, their clothes won’t be able to say this, and so people won’t treat each other differently.  You might not have thought about this, but imagine you know two friends and one has a large bag of sweets and one has a small bag of sweets.  I’m guessing that you might be tempted to be nicer to the large-bag-of-sweets friend.  Over time, we try to train ourselves to be kind to everyone whatever they might be able to offer us, but this takes practice.

When I think about getting dressed I like to choose something that fits how I feel, what I want to say, and what I need to do that day.  I take into account whether I will be doing all the same thing, or lots of different things.  If lots of different things, then I will need to choose an outfit that is more versatile.

One of my favourite things, which I am sure you will love too, is getting really dressed up for a party, in beautiful clothes.  When people all decide to get dressed up in their special clothes, it is as if some magic has come along.  All the girls and ladies look more beautiful, and all the boys and men look more handsome.  When everyone dresses like this, it is like everyone is saying ‘the world is a beautiful place.  Even if sometimes sad things happen, there is still beauty enough to cover over the sad things and help us be hopeful.  Each of us has a special part to play in making the world full of joy and delight.’

So what are you going to wear today?  I want to wear my new blue velvet coat, so we better plan a trip somewhere!

Expecting

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I am pregnant
with my own younger self.
She is waiting to be born in me,
an adult, almost forty.

I see her playing in the past,
skipping, smelling flowers.
When will she turn around
and step into her future?

I move closer,
hold my breath,
and I can hear her singing
softly to herself.

She sings the music
of the trees, the words
of butterflies,
and hums along with bees.

Held by the moment,
attention ripples
from her skin, her eyes.
She is utterly alive.

I call her name.
She looks around perplexed,
cannot see me,
scans the sky.

I call again,
regret the urgent tone.
How did that
fear get there?

And so I spread a blanket,
set out cups of tea and cake.
I read my book and let my presence
gently draw her close.

Yes, I sit and wait.

things I want to tell my children but might forget – bathing

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But before we go to France let’s talk about a few more things to do with getting up.  After breakfast, I like to have a bath (I would like to have written ‘take a bath’ because this is how people in olden times might say it and it is like a wink to the past to do this, but really I would normally say have a bath).

Quite a lot of people think that there is no time to have a bath in the morning.  Maybe it is because you haven’t arrived in your life yet, but I love to have a bath and because I am in charge of my own time and not (yet) sharing it, I can.  When you arrive in my life you will probably start by being bathed in the evening before bed.  This is nice too because you can go to bed all clean.  I am not sure, we will all have to see what works for us all.

But back to bathing.  Whether in the morning or at night, a bath is a special event for several reasons.  Firstly, it is a real privilege because in the time and place we live, we have warm running water.  Secondly it is like swimming and your whole body can enjoy the pleasure of being in a comforting environment.  If you are grown up like me, bathing also connects you to lots of happy memories of childhood, and for all of us bathing connects us to people who have lived since the beginning of the world, because bathing is common to many cultures (a culture is build up of actions and thoughts in a particular place or group over time); people have always needed to get clean.  In the bath you are your most ordinary self.  No one is expecting anything of you and it’s clear that you are skin and bones and toes and legs and arms.  It is easy to forget this at other times.  It’s also somewhere where you can smell beautiful smells that sometimes you don’t have time to take in.  I love rose and peony but I also love seaside smells and richer scents like verbena and fir and lemon.

When you are in a bath there is a fun game you can play which is called Bubble Factory.  You put bubble bath in and then see how much foam you can create by agitating the water to make bubbles.  This is particularly fun if you are in the bath with your brothers and sisters.  Also, you can make foam hair and beards and pretend to be Father Christmas, and you can make designs in foam on your tummy.  Foam is amazing!  It’s incredible that you can create it from just a tiny bit of soap and water.  Once my brother put bubble bath in a special bath called a spa-bath and it made so much foam that the room was filled almost to the ceiling and he couldn’t see the door to get out!

So a morning bath can set you up for a happy day because of all the lovely things that you get to experience in the water.  In the house I live in now, I can also see the sky from the window in the bathroom which means that sometimes I can lie in the bath and watch clouds float past.  Then it’s like there’s foam in the bath water and foam in the blue sky, which makes it feels like the inside and outside worlds are singing call and response to each other.

things I want to tell my children but might forget – having breakfast

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Having breakfast

I am going to tell you about my favourite breakfast and then see what is interesting about breakfasts.  In fact I’m going to tell you about two favourite breakfasts.  One is an everyday favourite, and one is a special day favourite.  You might wonder which one is the actual favourite, and this is in fact a revealing question, because what it shows is that sometimes what is best is not about the actual thing itself, but about how things fit together.  So, first of all, my favourite everyday breakfast is Yorkshire Gold tea with skimmed milk and multiseed bloomer freshly toasted in a Dualit toaster (set to 2) with butter (not very much) and Tiptree Orange and Tangerine marmalade.

What is yours?

A breakfast is a kind of handshake in the mouth.  When you get out of bed, you use your sense of sight, seeing your room, smell, smelling the fresh air from the window, hearing, hearing sounds from outside and touch, touching the bed clothes with your hands and the floor with your feet.  The only sense missing is taste.  It is when you drink your tea or eat your toast that the world becomes part of you (breathing air makes it become part of you, but it is not as feel-able as eating).  It is like with a person’s hand that you hold in yours for a moment, and that makes a connection point that is like a bridge to the person.

And this is why it is so important and delightful to have a breakfast you really love.  You want your first big connection to the world to be a joyful one.  And the other thing is that it should not be too much of a big event.  It should be gentle, and it should fit your day.  The favourite everyday breakfast is in many ways very ordinary – it is just toast and tea.  It fits the ordinary-ness of most days, because it is simple and calm to make and eat.  It is also a good breakfast because it requires just a little bit of waiting; waiting for the kettle to boil, and waiting for the toast to toast.  These small delays ease the pathway into the bigger events of the day.  But you might notice that it is very specific; a particular tea, and a particular marmalade and a particular toast, toasted in a particular way.  If you pay attention to tastes you will find that you like a particular kind of thing.  It is part of being a unique person.  You might not always be able to have the thing you want, but when you can, you should.  Different people like different things, and we can celebrate this at breakfast, whereas at dinner, we might like to celebrate everyone participating in the same thing.

So that was the favourite everyday breakfast and the favourite special breakfast is French baguette with butter (not very much) and soft apricot jam.  To have this breakfast we would have to teleport to France.  Have you been to France yet?

things I want to tell my children but might forget – going downstairs (and lifts and planes)

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Going downstairs

You may be surprised that stairs are considered very important.  If you watch a film like The Snowman, you will notice that it shows James going down the stairs, even though it does not really show him walking down the hall or landing.  This is because there is something special about changing levels, and it is to do with flying.  While we are thinking about this we are also going to think about lifts and planes.

Lifts

‘Going up!’  In a lift, when you hear this announcement, try jumping.  What is funny is that the floor will come up a bit to meet your legs while you are in the air.  so your landing distance will be a bit less than your taking-off distance.  This is also true the other way round.  If the lift says ‘going down’, then jump and you will land a bit lower than you took off.  This creates a funny feeling like a smile in your legs.

Planes

The same kind of inner woosh happens when you are in an aeroplane that is taking off.  To get into the sky the plane must start by going very fast along the land.  At a certain point, the plane nose will be pulled up and the plane is no longer on the ground but in the air.  There is a particular sensation at this moment which is like a gasp inside you followed by a tiny ripple going through your veins; this is because you are now flying, something that people wanted to do for centuries before we were alive because they looked at birds and wanted to be like them.  We are very lucky because at the time that we are alive, people have found a way to do this.  There are other moments that we feel this feeling and we will think about those later.

It is a strange thing that it is exciting to leave the ground, but it is also a good feeling to land.  Both feelings are good.  Being in the air feels free and wild and brave and being on the land feels solid and connected and comforting.  It is a very good thing when both two opposite kinds of feeling are enjoyable.

Going downstairs

So now you can probably see why going downstairs and upstairs is a special kind of action.  The other thing about going downstairs is that it is a transition that takes time you can notice.  Getting up is a transition that is happens in the amount of time we could call ‘the blink of an eye’.  Blink!  You’re out of bed.  Going downstairs is a transition that takes about ten seconds (unless you run, or slide on a lilo).  So you can notice it while it is happening, if you decide to pay attention.