Chaos Required

This past weekend, my wife and I had ourselves a little getaway, partly to celebrate her birthday, but mostly to just get away from the chaos.  It's been too long since we last enjoyed the company of each other without having to submit to the demands of the three tyrants that actually run this house (five if you count the dog and cat).  It was while we were away from all the mayhem that I realized...I missed needed it.

Our home for the weekend was a newly built log cabin, tucked away in the woods, in southern Illinois.  While it's not exactly a glamorous location, it met our needs: we didn't want to waste time driving and we didn't want to have to lock an adjoining common room door.  The peace and quiet (and lack of internet) proved to be too much.

We wrongly assumed that we would be able to sleep in until around 10:30 or noon.  Turns out we couldn't sleep at all.  The excitement of knowing we wouldn't have to wake up at 6:30 to answer the requests for chocolate milk, pop-tarts, and turning on Dora was enough to keep us from actually getting any shut-eye.

I was amazed at how hard it was to lay there in bed and listen to nothing.  We're so used to hearing a few "Good Night"  calls from the baby or listening to the boy's feet thump across the wood floor on his way to get a glass of water.  I missed not hearing those middle-of-the-night sounds.

We can always count on our oldest daughter to sneak her way into our bedroom at some point in the night.  I missed not waking up to her warm little body snuggled between her mother and me.  We usually try to put her back in bed, but sometimes it's like she's a ninja.  Her stealth and cunning are only outmatched by her puppy-dog face and beauty.

Don't be fooled, that pretty, pink, back-pack is full of shurikens, a sai, and purple-berry lip gloss

Strangely enough, on the first night of vacation, we couldn't sleep.  It wasn't because of getting up in the middle of the night to feed a crying baby or having to put our daughter back in her own bed for the fourth time, it was because we didn't have to do these things.

There was a sense of anxiety all weekend long, a feeling that we should be doing something or that we had forgotten something.  It's very hard to sit and be still when your normal day consists of picking up after everybody, getting people on the right buses at the correct times, wiping butts, cleaning puke, and doing homework.

I had plenty of time to just sit and ponder everything and nothing, a rare treat at home. This place had the perfect atmosphere for amateur philosophers.  A love-seat rocking chair overlooking the pond and woods invited me to sit a spell and muse.

You sit here.

You look there.

You sit.  You look.  And then you think:

"Why do people say that they hate 'organized' sports?  Aren't all sports organized?   Why do baby pants have pockets?  Where's the baby?   Whatever happened to the Baha Men?  Can a fantasy football team name be funny without parodying a curse word or being sexual?  I think I hear the baby crying.  Why do all of my favorite t.v. shows get cancelled after the first season?  Why does my son watch so much t.v.?  Why does he have to act so much like me?  At least he has his mother's clear skin.  Thank God for passing on good genes.  Humans aren't the pinnacle of evolution at all, it must be cockroaches, they can survive anything.  Where is that crying baby sound coming from?  I like beer.  Yep, beer is good.

Then the wife comes outside and asks: "What are you doing"?

"Nothing".

At home, I usually look forward to five minutes of sitting in silence and staring at nature; it's a nice break.  On a vacation from children, it's not a break, it's the only thing to do.  It's hard to relax when there is nothing to relax from.  I've always agreed with the concept of yin-yang and how polar opposites give rise to each other.   Seemingly opposing ideas are not actually in opposition, but instead, they complement each other.  For this Daddy to relax, I need the crazy, running around all day nonsense that only my children (and sometimes my wife) can offer.  Chaos Required!

Lao Tsu was all about the Yin.