In the depths of winter it is impossible
to imagine summer. T shirts and bare legs, picnic blankets and long warm days. Winter holds a beauty all of its own; more subdued and sombre but just as
striking, you just have to know where to look and how to see. Witness the
copper haze of bare willow branches against a grey sky, the translucent
eggshell of a frozen puddle, just waiting for a foot to crack its brittle
surface. The welcoming glow of lights from within when all is dark and gloomy
without, and above all the scintillating, sparkling, twinkling festival of
lights that is the run up to Christmas.Mindfulness; how very current and fashionable a concept, and something that small children understand instinctively. Without effort they live fully in the present, and it is up to us to learn from them so that we too may become mindful and content once more. This most essential and noble of abilities, forgotten somehow in the clamour and confusion of growing up and growing old. What we need to do is grow down to the child’s level, for if you want to see something afresh, see it through the eyes of a child. The first step is to make sure you actually have your eyes open; so many people live like sleepwalkers, wandering with eyes fixed blindly ahead and never sparing a glance at all the wonders that surround us. And anything can be a wonder in the eyes of a toddler; a fallen feather, a shiny sequin, the plume of smoke from a lit chimney. Even the bleak and barren charms of winter are beautiful to the innocent eye; the newly bare branches of a tree, now a superhighway of activity for squirrels and birds laying down their winter supplies. Rubbish caught in a fence that looks just like a jackdaw, a pile of rotting leaves to kick and a puddle to stamp in.
It is unfortunate that those of us with
children may feel more than most that every day is a rush to get things done,
an endless struggle to get them dressed, potty trained, fed, to school, nursery
or whatever else, but alongside all these tasks and responsibilities - within all the mad rush - lies a margin in which we can find mindfulness. It's time to get on your
child’s wavelength and take pleasure in the small things, to marvel at a bus or
a train as it rushes by, to feel the weight of wooden bricks in your hand as
you help them to build a tower, to make a special trip to pick some holly, so
gaily festooned with berries and thrillingly prickly. I promise if you do, and
do it wholeheartedly, you too will find the magic that lives inside the everyday. Of course children need to fit in with your day, and in fact they enjoy the chores and tasks that we can find so dull; filling the shopping trolley, putting on a wash, even sweeping the hallway. Felix loves a broom and insists on helping me to push it about. But if you wonder why your kid is bored and resentful when all you've done is drag them around the shops looking for gifts for people you hate, then forced them into a high chair while you drink lattes and send texts, then shoved them back in the car to race home so you can make them a dinner they don’t seem to want in front of the telly they don't in all honesty need, then you might need to think again. Sprinkle some fun and adventure into their day and you might find that you too have your mojo back, as well as a child who eats better, sleeps better and I dare say behaves better. Children need fresh air and mud, they need to stamp and kick and touch. They need the park, the beach, the forest and the river. They need the wind in their hair and the cold on their cheeks. Not just the safe environs of the playground, not just the airless vacuum of the shopping centre. Too busy? Stop for ten minutes on the school run home and feed the ducks, no one will starve to death if you do. Or take the bus; children find public transport more exciting than you could ever imagine. There's a reason the wheels on the bus is still a nursery favourite after so many years.
As Christmas approaches and the world is all
glitter and gold and flashing gaudy snowmen, the time of the child draws near.
The baby Jesus lies peaceful in countless nativities, whilst children act out
the timeless tale of an urgent search for an inn by the guiding light of the
Christmas star, with the three wise men and a poor woman in advanced labour
forced to give birth in a stable. Spare a thought for her when you're complaining
about secret santa. As gifts are bought and wrapped and hidden away, it is the
children who really bring the magic to the day, and anyone who is lucky enough
to be spending any part of Christmas with a child should start to count their
blessings. We are the lucky ones, and in the choas and crassness that surrounds
the modern Christmas our children are the guiding light by which we can all see
more clearly. And so I wish you, and your kin, a very merry and a very mindful
Christmas. Ho Ho Ho...