I spent the last week taking time each day to create a list of morning habits for Audie’s first at-home summer. For today, day 1, at least, this effort has been worth it. The biggest win is what should have been the most obvious: starting the day meditating makes the rest of the day better, no matter how old you are.
There is a saying that goes something like you should meditate for 10 minutes a day, and if you don’t have time for that, you need to meditate for an hour.
Thirty spokes meet in the hub. Where the wheel isn’t is where it’s useful.
Guin, Ursula K. Le. Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching (p. 14). Shambhala. Kindle Edition.
Hollowed out, clay makes a pot. Where the pot’s not is where it’s useful.
Cut doors and windows to make a room. Where the room isn’t, there’s room for you.
So the profit in what is is in the use of what isn’t.
Instead of meditating for 10 minutes, I started our habit with five minutes AND included my five-year-old. She does one minute meditations at her Kung Fu class, and she was totally pumped to go for five. By the end of her five minutes, she was very present with her emotions. When the timer chimed, I opened my eyes to find her no longer with crossed legs and meditative hands, like an adorable little statue. She was a starfish staring at the ceiling, quietly repeating the perennial summer mantra: “BORED.”
She went on to practice punches and kicks and stances and forms, getting her energies tempered for a day at Theater Camp. And I can’t help but be pleased that we took a few minutes to sit with BORED. BORED has so much to teach us. Life has the potential for such enticing intrigue, how dare we miss a minute. And when we do find ourselves in the still waters of BORED, that is where the strangest and most delightful ideas come to the surface.
Throughout the rest of our morning together, she seemed more able to recognize what emotions she was having than usual, even when they were big and frustrating. As I neared to front of the drop off line for camp, she said to me, “Right now, I’m sad that you can’t come in with me.” She just shared that to acknowledge the feeling. There was nothing to fix. Just the truth of being sad about being parted, about experiences not meant to be shared. As soon as the door opened, she was in the moment of excitement of a new day with new experiences. Ready to take on her world.
I’m sitting down the road at a coffee shop, just in case she needs me on this first day (mhmm, sure, nothing to do with my own sadness and excitement and feelings about this day of firsts). Between all the items on my to do list, I hope that I, too, get to learn from BORED while find myself living in moments in no need of fixing.
The Universal Penguin 
LOVE this post Em. Thanks for being such a role model-y parent. I hope I get to learn all I’m learning from you in my next lifetime!
Little Tommy, your father’s “alter ego”, would have gone to that camp. His big self would have hard a hard time going to get coffee but would have. Preparing a child for the independence of adulthood is a main goal of parenting. Seeing that door open gives a feeling of success with a little sadness. Good job, our child.