Drawing by Ivy
Yesterday was something to be proud of in more ways than one. Some of us absolutely adore children, love talking to them, playing with them, simply being around them. And then others of us ... well ... they get triggered and are reminded of the abuse. Some of us witnessed other children being abused.
The sweetest little girl lives in our building. Ivy is her name and she is 5 years old. She has the biggest brown eyes and is full of joy and life. On top of all that, for some reason, she really likes us. One day back in December there was a knock on our door. When we opened it there was Ivy and her father and in her hands a plate of cookies. Her dad said she had been waiting all day to give us one. We were surprised and very touched. We didn’t know she liked us that much.
A few weeks after that we invited her into our home to watch the animated movie “The Polar Express”. We cuddled together and watched it. She snuggled right up to us, a perfect stranger, thumb in mouth and her little hand playing with our hand. So trusting. Wow. And there it was though, the reminder of how trusting children can be and how easily an adult can betray that trust. Bittersweet.
We promised Ivy that she could come and play again soon. Yet it took us quite a while to invite her up again because we were so reluctant. Not because we don’t like Ivy but because we were scared again. But this time we said let’s have her up to play and let’s pay attention to our feelings. Let’s try not to resist and fight what is happening within. Just allow it to be. And if we can, to try to focus on her. Othel (1), being such an observer of human behaviour and emotion, said he was going to focus on how she played. What she would do and say. What she focused on. What she would pretend. Sounds cold and clinical but Othel tends to stay detached from people. But he is not unfeeling. In fact he is one of the kindest of all of us and he does love children very much. But he also finds it hard to be with them.
Ivy came to visit with a bag full of her toys and books. She brought out each treasure and showed us. A pig named Olivia, a cowgirl doll named Jessie, a baby boy called Giraffe. And three books. And a couple of elephants. And a pair of shoes in case we wanted to play outside. First she wanted us to read the fairy tales so we did. She snuggled up beside us, thumb in mouth, and her left hand playing a little with our right hand. We read the stories and looked at her once in a while. Oh those big brown beautiful eyes full of childlike wonder and trust. Amazing.
Then we played. And we watched her. And did what she asked us to do. Let’s pretend this ... and let’s pretend that. Okay we said.
And when it was time to go, she mentioned that she had play dates with another adult neighbour. “but .. I love you both the same.” Man that was awesome. And we did it. We took a risk and put ourself in an uncomfortable situation, focusing on being aware of our own feelings and focusing on Ivy and what she wanted to do and be, moment by moment.
We also took a risk this week in the support group, putting ourself in an uncomfortable situation again and simply focusing on our emotions and on our body’s reaction to those emotions. Staying aware of our breath and of any tension. It’s as if we are on a new level of being. Since the beginning of this year we have begun taking better care of ourself. Meditating, exercising, eating well and taking more risks. We must be feeling stronger.
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For the second time this week we ran a little. Only 4 blocks but plenty for our body. At first we started on our usual walk. About 20 minutes or so. We felt a bit tired too so thought maybe we shouldn’t run much. Maybe it will make us even more tired. But the running felt so good and we expanded it to 4 blocks. The other day it was 3. And the fourth block we ran faster. And then for some reason, the tiredness vanished. We felt really clear-headed and wide awake and alert. We weren’t expecting that. And you know what? It lasted throughout the night. We barely felt like sleeping. It wasn’t that we were thinking too much and couldn’t get to sleep. We just didn’t feel tired. Must be those endorphins and serotonin and all those good chemicals in our brain.
Today we are off to visit Lance. Like we do almost every weekend. And we usually see Graham as well, as he lives with Lance. The kids just love visiting them and always have a lot of fun. We are looking forward to seeing Graham and telling him about seeing his website with his demo on it. He studied video game design for a year and has been working on his demo for a while hoping to get a job soon. We were moved seeing his demo because we know how many years he has been drawing. The demo also has movie music on it and he has always drawn with movie music on at the same time. Years and years. This is his passion and we understood so well how it feels to express what you love. We are so very proud of him and who he is in the world and so happy that he can follow his heart.
And we are following ours.
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