After this week, a week of five 10-hour daily shifts with Grand Son, I will return to cloth. This week I’m doing other things. He is six. And busy. 
Right now he’s engaged with mini legos creating a “light reflect-dometer.” It tracks the rays of the sun. I’m just learning to pronounce it correctly. “Light ree flect dom a ter.” 
Some of our interests intersect at various points. Yesterday, black walnut gathering and some dyeing experiments. And there’s a butterfly bush right outside the window where he works and I’m receiving moment by moment updates. Called to check it out after almost every sentence I type here. A butterfly with a torn wing that still can fly. It’s o.k. he tells me. I’ve placed a small CD player next to him with mellow flute music playing. The effect is marginal.
And just as I was going to post a picture of the beginning of my “Jude-like Shirt Project”
I’m called off to another investigation of sorts. The idea was to do a joint post. Identify circles and spheres. Circle-type objects. Objects he especially resonates with. To take their pictures then post them. Here goes.
and this. Surely my favorite. A lovely felted centering facilitator by Sumitra. Renaissance woman. Conjurer of magic. Artist. And so much more.
And right now a handy man is patching holes in the roof–the new roof I would add–and Grand Son is outside with him. Monitoring the job. So I’m finishing up here. And though this all sounds playful and fun–as it is, really…
usually he’s hanging out the window trying to spot kids in this neighborhood he can play with. They’re several years older than he is, and at this age, one’s “age number” seems critical. It’s sweet and funny–but more than anything–poignant. Watching a six year old trying to be cool enough to play with a 10 year old. I cringe. Don’t intervene. Letting it play its way out as it will. I may not be a huge fan of the culture he’s stepping into, but I cannot protect him from the lessons he came in with. And as I write this I see I’m letting go of a life pattern of my own–the attempt to protect my children from their lessons–watching it fall to the wayside. Yesterday I told a friend that it’s long over due–the need to sit out this cosmic dance. It’s time. And it has nothing to do with LOVE. Or maybe, actually, it has every thing to do with LOVE. Gotta go. It’s too quiet out there.
following thread 
I can not protect him from the lessons he came in with… What wise words. I wish I had know that when my sons were that age. It’s a lesson I am learning now, forty years later. Your grandson is delightful at six and his parents are lucky to have you. A child can not have too much love. You and he will remember these days when he grows up!
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i’m with you. i don’t know what if any thing would have changed for my kids, but it would have been a real relief for me to have had more “distance.” these boundaries have been a long time coming. much love to you.
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Wise words here, letting go to let our grandchildren find their way: My twin grandchildren are four, a boy and a girl. Last week friends of my daughter and son in law came to join us for a family night out at a local pizza parlor that has a back room with small tables and a huge blackboard. The other children were a boy, seven and a girl, five. At first, their parents worried about the age difference especially between 4 and 7. I suggested that we just let everyone be.
The boys got along so well, age not a factor at all as legos and dinosaurs are a common language. Equally dinosaurs for the girls but also some music and dance, gender differences only rising occasionally. They played pictionary on the blackboard with varying drawing skills and it was a beautiful night as our little ones found the space to stretch themselves and come into their own with the bigger kids.
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thinking about you and your days in CA. and here music accompanying your comment “just let everyone be.” i’ll listen for the melody today. thanks for taking time out of your busy ness to comment here. much love.
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oh dear–i have to correct the typo–of course, i meant “hear music…”
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What a warm as wise post this is. It reminds me of the summer our grandson came to visit (2011). He was a bit older, but with similar interests as your boy. I too watched him as he tried to find a way in to the play of the hoards of kids at the local outdoor music event we attended. I too found things to observe, things to share (taught him to stitch!), things to tolerate (oh the energy of young boys!) – and am all the richer for it.
Yes if we could only know then what we know now!
Thank you so much for this post.
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hi Nancy. well every post has mentioned “wise” so far and i’m noticing how that word resonates with me. do i feel “wise?” no, not especially. it’s more after years of resisting “what is” i simply don’t have the energy or whatever to fly in its face any longer. wondering if that makes sense?
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it does. it does make sense. because You give him Your sense of the world, which he desperately needs in his roots. but the World
at Large. the World at Large is the world he is inheriting. it is HIS world that he will need to move in and through. you cannot go there with him.
like with the children outside the window. you cannot go there with him but he knows that he needs to go there. he Wants to go there because it is HIS world.
it is so HARD.
but is what it is.
my grandson and i…so similar. but now, at 23 years old, he lives in a world that i will never know. to me, a world of Nothingness and drugs and Nothingness. and so…i think…what was it, this world here that we shared when he was young?…is that Nothingness too?, now, for him? I don’t know.
but we give what we know to give. and then there is the rest of the world out there that gestures giving.
for me, it’s the realization that it won’t always be beauty full. sometimes it will be harsh and even, sometimes Ugly. all that i can ever do is be me. in the most genuine and committed way. that’s it.
the rest…well….
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oh Grace. this strikes such a cord with me. and yes, i cannot even begin to imagine “HIS world.” the world he will be occupying when i am just a shadow in his memory. no. i cannot imagine any of that. and there is such a determination here for him, to fully experience that world. head-on. full steam. so few filters at this point. and again, as you so wisely say, “all i can ever do is be me, in the most genuine and committed way.”
thinking about your grandson and remembering myself at that age which surely appeared as “nothingness” to my own parents. i say surely. should say maybe. but always there the firm roots. and it’s true that some of those roots have had to be removed for the health of the tree–but the others, the strong and true ones. yes. they have sustained. and may it be the same for your grandson. that is my prayer to him. for you. holding all of this in my heart of hearts. and so much love to you.
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I love these crone years!
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it’s so funny. we always knew we’d get here. and now, it’s like “how in the world did this happen? and so fast?” and here we are. wonderful to be on this journey with YOU.
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