Philosophy for life
After darkness comes the light. Bath time, a happy face under a towel, a hug, a chat and a cuddle.
There is no sweeter, kinder more caring and thoughtful boy in the whole wide world than this one…
My saving grace,
His smiling face.
He asks if I could be king?
As he fancies himself a prince.
“But you’d have to share the food,
Not be a greedy guts…”
Unlike his cheeky sister this e’en.
We’d all live very well, ruled by
The kindest boy in all the world.
Whew, what a week. I’m getting better at this ‘fronting up’ malarkey but there are limits. Four big staff talks and two big public events – chairing a debate and judging an international final. I’m pooped and rumbling back home from the last, hungry and tired on a Saturday afternoon.
Like all these things, it’s good to have done them. As the Harvard Business Review advised this week – think of it as learning and it’s less of a stresser, but still… I fancy a steadier week in my own company next week.
But in all the hurly burly of microphones, podiums, stages and cameras, the only news that really matters is that my boy is doing his best at school – and my girl is acting up because she wants some quality time and attention.
That’s today’s job – putting a smile on their faces. And that’s the one which most reliably puts a smile on mine.
A Champagne cork popped – or at least some cheap Prosecco – for our beguiling boy this evening. And we gave him that cork to mark and celebrate his fantastic progress post Parents Evening.
Until recently a past master at diversionary tactics and avoidance, the Boy Wonder has found his feet, developed some self-confidence and nosed out ahead of his age average, with confident predictions of more to come.
Much hard work from the whole family has got him through a sticky patch and maybe now he’s away. His reading has raced ahead, his maths is fine and he aced his reasoning tests – scoring off the chart.
But what matters here isn’t school, me or his mum. What matters here is him. He may always muddle ‘was’ and ‘saw’ and get his numbers back to front, but the best news of today is his application.
When the rest of the class had finished, by all accounts the boy was still working steadily away; on his own, in the corner. Head down, having a good go.
Me and his mum couldn’t help a ‘high five’ in front of the Head and his teacher. They smiled. We were all delighted for the world’s loveliest boy.
My lovely girl has got ‘in line’ skates for her Birthday. And very pleased with them she is too. At the same time – in the interests of developing my own interests – I decided to dust off and twang my old ukulele and pick a picture to contemplate from my unopened Christmas art book.
And here it is: ‘Unique Forms of Continuity in Space’, a bronze Futurist sculpture from 1931 by Umberto Boccioni.
Described as ‘an expression of movement and fluidity’, it has a bit more oomph than my wobbling ‘little Miss’. But the coincidence of art mimicking life tickled me.
Boccioni’s sculpture is depicted on the the Italian 20 cent euro coin. And after a tentative start she’s on the money too, trying hard – and getting there with her snazzy new skates.
Camping up a hill in Devon you can’t help but take the longer view. Hills that have been there forever. The toil – even in the modern mechanised era – in taming and working the land.
Life is defined by sunrise and sunset and the fullest of moons. It made me think. I spend too much time staring at small text-laden screens and far too little looking at the bigger picture.
There is good evidence that short-sightedness is exacerbated by the eye not getting frequent enough opportunity to resolve to the infinite horizon. My eyes hurt when we first arrived. I couldn’t comfortably view the tree line – it felt like a strain.
Put the iPhone away (nowhere to charge it) and in a day or two my eyes were comfortably drawn to the hills and distant pastures – retuned to their natural state.
There are perhaps four more summers before my little family starts to fragment. Maybe only four more times we’ll pitch and strike our tent, in that farm field with friends and their kids.
For all the packing and unpacking, fetching and carrying, cooking and scrubbing, it is hard to imagine that it won’t go on forever. The trees, the meadow of buttercups, the hills and streams. All green, verdant and full of life…
And in one day back in the big city forgotten and distant. After a week at work, a world away.
The longer view, the far horizon and the here and now. I work too hard, for enough money but too little thanks. I should change my focus or soon I will need a different plan.
Achilles & Aristotle 