The material material trappings of life – and I use the word trappings in the animal with it’s paw stuck in a steel trap that’s chained to a stake sense – have never much appealed to me.
In The Beginning
Not too long before Wyatt was born I lived in a small studio, owned a couple pieces of furniture, a knife, a couple of forks and plates, and less than thirty items of clothing.
I had zero debt and an inexpensive lifestyle… I owned my life. Working, traveling, or doing nothing as it came to me. Warnings and protestations were murmured my way. I was, “they” said, living life the “wrong way”.
I didn’t care. I knew what I was doing and felt the need to explain my life to exactly zero percent of the population.
Ch-ch-ch-ch changes
And then I found out a little Wyatt was on the way. Those murmurs became shouts. It was one thing for me to live like an idiot, “they” told me, another altogether to force someone else to… especially a defenseless little kid. Comfort, consistency and routine now had to be the order of the day.
I confess, there was some logic to what “they” said. And being abruptly thrust into an arena I knew less than nothing about, I was off balance.
I followed “their” advice and in less than eight years I had completely inverted my life. Five bedrooms… three of which we didn’t use. Dozens of pieces of furniture. Lots of forks and knives and plates. (I even had a crystal wine decanter for Christ’s sake.) And I’d gotten myself a solid five hundred thousand dollars in debt.
I was owned and would remain so for at least the next twenty-five years.
“They” said I was a “success”.
“Success” felt like death.
Once you have a roof over your head and sufficient food in your belly, money does not increase child, relationship, or family health and happiness.
But we also use money to keep score these days. It’s how we think we can measure if we’re better, equal to, or worse than someone else. Meaning a great deal of the importance of money is purely psychological. A reality that exists only in the mind.
Serendipity intervenes
One weekend in the midst of my angst we went camping in Big Sur… or perhaps I should more accurately say we tried to go camping in Big Sur. Because upon our arrival the host informed us the campsites were completely reserved, and had been so for six months. The death of the spontaneous weekend camp trip.
Happily, our host was a similarly planning handicapped fellow and he took pity on our tribe. The group site hadn’t been booked. It wasn’t supposed to be used for overflow… but… if I didn’t mind sharing with any other irresponsible campers who may show up without reservations, we could have it for a couple of nights.
We set up camp. Another truck appeared. Some other poor sap who didn’t have his shit together enough to plan his life six months in advance. Six people piled out. A couple with four kids.
Within minutes our children were talking and playing with theirs… who seemed so confident and well mannered, sliding in and out of at least three languages as they spoke to each other.
I introduced myself in hopes of getting the back story. I did. They were from France. They’d been living in a camper for more than five years, driving their family through Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Syria, Israel, the length of Africa, and the Americas.
In short, they’d committed every parenting sin I’d been warned against. Yet their kids were still alive… with all their teeth, they moved without dragging their knuckles, they had normal shaped heads… and they gave every appearance of being healthy and happy… and intelligent.
Yes, you’re right… it could have been luck, or maybe they are the exception that proves the rule. But that’s not the impression I got. This was the result of a concerted effort. This was life as art. Not simply following someone’s five, ten, twelve or twenty step program.
We all like to pretend we have more control than we actually do. That we know what’s next and can plan for it. They were creating on the fly. Not even bothering to pretend they had answers. Quite contrarily, they seemed to relax into the knowledge that they didn’t. Dealing with each hurdle as it came.
The difference between having kids and creating a family
“It seemed obvious that making a family would be our single greatest creative act”, they told me. “Our most important contribution to the world… or… our biggest mistake if we fooked it up. (Her accent was a little hard to follow.) We decided that the best we could do for this world was create people who aren’t afraid of it, who care for their fellow inhabitants, and who are tolerant of those who see things differently… then we set out to create them.”
The energy you put out is the energy that comes back to you. If it’s focus is money… that’s what you’ll get. Your relationships and family life may… or may not work out for you. But if the focus of your energy is family… well, family is what you’ll get. With the possibility of having a few extra bucks.
Friends are always reminding me that life isn’t all or nothing, that a balance can be struck between competing energies. It may be true in theory… I don’t think I’ve ever seen that play out quite that way.
In any event, my chance encounter with this family showed me the difference between having kids and creating a family. It planted a seed that would come to term the day after Malia survived her cardiac arrest.
But when that seed took hold we discovered that simply modifying our existing life wouldn’t get us to where we needed to be. So we completely blew that life up and started thinking from scratch. Starting with a new central theme: what’s in your heart is far more important than what’s in your wallet, and we let the rest fall where it may.
So far… so good.