“So I have been blessed with this teacher and guide, who decided to be born through me. My son Sanil, 8 now, has always been full of inquiries, observations, deductions and theories… Ever since I can remember and ever since he started communicating, we’ve had these long chats about world, people, emotions, life, whatnot. As much as I love delving deep into our kiddy brand philosophy, scarcity of time and other household distractions put a constraint on that. As a way of innovative solution (oh, we are so good at that!), we decided to club our evening walk with our phone-free, distraction-free, household-stuff-free discussion on anything under the sky… or beyond it (yes, we go there often). We call it Grounding-Bonding Walk as we talk while walking bare foot on grass.”
We have our regular disagreements.
Of course I am a cool mommy but I do have some regular mommy quirks. Sometimes.
Sometimes I am bugged by his (lack of) dressing sense. He just puts on clothes somehow only to cover his body and hasn’t the slightest idea of “what looks good”. I don’t have a particularly amazing sense of fashion either but I can figure out what matches with what and am definitely not a fan of pajamas worn with backside in the front.
So I gave him an impromptu speech on the importance of being “presentable”.
“How does it matter?” came in a quick retort.
“Well, wouldn’t you like to see a well-dressed person as opposed to a not-so-well-dressed one?”
“I don’t care as long as I like the person,” he gave it a thought and shrugged.
Ok, now was the time to really rev up my arguments, so I rolled up my (nicely matched) sleeves and went, “If you a see a girl who is in a beautiful dress, hair combed properly, wearing nice shoes and another one who has some ordinary clothes on without caring much about how she looks, which one would you like better?”
“It wouldn’t make any difference to me. Both will be like same.”
Sigh!
Wrong example, I silently scold myself: girls, really?
Right now he is anyway in this we-don’t-like-girls phase boys go through. “Wait another 4-5 years and we’ll see,” I smirk inwardly every time he gives me this “girls are boring” routine.
Ok, nature! He likes nature!
“Sanil, tell me why do you like flowers, huh? You like them because they are beautiful, right? They attract you because of their beauty, don’t they? Wouldn’t you rather look at a beautiful flower instead of something ordinary?”
All smug at my brilliant shot, and unaware that the discussion has changed course from presentable-ness to the arena of beauty, I waited for his response.
What he said was very simple.
And was said very simply.
“Mom, flowers are beautiful because they ARE beautiful. They are not trying to be beautiful. They are not being beautiful so that you think they are beautiful. They just are.”
To that, I didn’t know what to say…
I was blown away by how simply he could make a subtle discernment between wanting to look good and being beautiful. Well, that shifted something in me and got me thinking on the layers and layers of why we want to look good…
Though I can’t say that I have developed a taste for pajamas worn backwards, I am not bothering him to be more presentable anymore.
I’ll wait till he gets over his I-don’t-like-girls phase! 😉
Dinakshi
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“Mom, flowers are beautiful because they ARE beautiful. They are not trying to be beautiful. They are not being beautiful so that you think they are beautiful. They just are.” The essence.
Travelling with Sanil and listening to him is a unique experience. He is special, very. And so are you.