The Philosopher

Sometimes I wonder about my mystical Addie. I mean, I never question that kids are far wiser than us, having just come from There. But Addie is sometimes otherworldly, and I revel in that. When both girls were babies, they would stare at the sconces, remembering pure light (I am convinced). Gillian has always been very sweet, very charitable (except to her sister), and very kind. Gillian follows the rules, and can plug in anywhere. She easily makes friends, she is well-liked, and she is wonderfully musical and creative.

Addie marches to her own drum. She doesn’t care if people like her. She does what she likes to do, and has the humor of a 40 year old. I feel, all the time, like she is just barely tolerating being in her little 3 year old body. Somehow it’s our secret that she is far older and far wiser than what the limitations of her development suggest. When I lay down with her to tuck her into bed, she just stares into my eyes, and says something like “my beautiful mama” and strokes my face and hair like she’s the parent or the nurturing spouse, and I’m the life apprentice. When I get up to go pack lunches, I say “give me a kiss”, and she will say, intently, “do it slow, like we’re married.” For the record, she has been fixating on getting married lately, and in the My Little Pony Episode with Shining Armor and Princess Cadence they share a long magical, transformational kiss at the end, but still. That kiss is meant, by Addie, to represent the truest love. And I am the chosen one. It makes me weepy to have all the love in her little soul directed at me like that. I know she won’t want me to kiss her one day, so I’ll log these into my memory box to pull out when she’s 16 and yelling about how much she hates me and how unfair I am.

Addie is full of mischief; she loves to interject just the right amount of action or word to set off a chain reaction of effect. Like when we went on a field trip and after the play we saw, it was time for lunch. We went down to the basement of the place we saw it, where there was a cafeteria. She told the child next to her how nice it was to eat outside (remember: we were inside in a windowless basement). The other child told her they were inside. She said, cheekily, “nope, OUTSIDE! It’s a beee-yoootiful day!” and this went on and on, until the other child collapsed in a weeping heap of frustration. His crying went on for at least 30 minutes. Addie was more than satisfied at her control mastery. I was fascinated, and horrified, by that exchange. She does the exact same thing with Gillian all day long. And it works. No matter how many times I tell Gillian to ignore her (this is especially true of Addie deliberately repeating everything Gillian says. When they copy ME, I say things like “I love my mama. I want to listen every day and do what she says because I love her. I will clean up my room, and not fight with my sister”…they lose interest quickly in my self-serving comments. Gillian gets upset instead of following my lead, but she’ll learn.). Addie has said mean things to me before (“I don’t love you” comes to mind, but she doesn’t know the word “hate” yet) and she often follows a mean comment with “I WANT to hurt your feelings!”.

Addie also blows my mind regularly with weird, insightful things to say. One Saturday morning she was singing, and then stopped and said “swallet, white and sick”. I asked her what a swallet is. She said "when you swallet, you get sick and come back, and get sick and come back and get sick and come back". I asked, "come back from where?" She answered "from you". So, this exchange sent me to the internet to google “swallet”, a word I had never heard before. It appears to be an English word for sinkhole…or more specifically, the point where water leaves the surface and flows underground (sinkholes may or may not have a swallet). Some say a swallet is a “cave that swallows a river.” But it also has a historical connotation in mining, as when “water breaks in upon miners at work.” Was Addie recalling some experience in another lifetime when she was a miner who became ill and died or someone around her did? Does “white and sick” mean “pale and sick”? Was she giving me a message from the great beyond that we become sick, die, and come back over and over again? I have felt that is true-in our wide magnificent universe-that God is serenity-pure life-that we are infinitely wise and return to the light of pure energy, pure serenity. I believe we are here, learning the craft of infinite compassion, oneness, and eventually mastering these things after many lifetimes here and then become teachers. I have always thought that is true, and near death experience stories and Buddhism have a similar basis.

Here are some stories:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBgI8W5xf4A

This website has a lot (http://www.near-death.com/), and many repeat the same themes, but this is one of my favorites:
http://www.near-death.com/experiences/reincarnation04.html

This is not all there is. I know that. It seems so impermanent, and like this is the part of our existence that is temporary. Quantum theory tells us time is relative, that multiple possible outcomes, occurring at exactly the same time, are infinite. Maybe that is what connects us. It is much easier to have patience and compassion for others when you see them as fellow souls moving through the matrix of learning to perfect their understanding and connection to others. To teach others with embodying illness, death, crime, or experience loss and suffering to get to a higher level of understanding. None of the things that happen to us are personal. Things just happen. We learn from it. It carves a deeper cavern for our joy, as it were. If we can truly find a place of observation, tolerance, and compassion we cease suffering. We become open and loving. We stop beating ourselves up over the minutia of every day existence, or beating others up for indiscretions. Our wise little Addie has our respect as a teacher. Some days I feel awake, like today, but many more days I am distracted and preoccupied with the everyday details that are of no real consequence in the grand scheme of life. Mindfulness meditation is intended to connect a person with the part of them that is immutable and full of grace-to let go of “things that happen” and focus on “that which IS”. These things go along with my need to commit to taking better care of myself, starting with enough sleep. It’s just a blink, after all. Best not to miss it.