Loving Kindness

Sometimes I pick up my almost 13-year-old daughter Lucia from school and try to hug her. It's kind of like hugging a stick. She's embarrassed and annoyed. Duh. Why can't I remember that feeling in the moment. When I stop and think about it, I clearly remember feeling that way towards my own mother when I was a teenager. What happens to us that we fall right into behaviors that we actively committed to never doing? That's surely fodder for another blog.

Lucia and I have a lot of very similar characteristics. We're both like sticks when people try to hug us and we're not prepared for it. We both turn inwards and become remote when we are disappointed or hurt. We're both resistant to new things. We both love to read. Despite all of our similarities, Lucia is clearly her own person and there are countless things I learn about her everyday.

Our nighttime ritual has always been reading together before bed. Even now when the two of us barely fit into her bed, we read. I usually read out loud to Lucia. Sometimes she reads out loud to me and sometimes we take turns reading to each other. The books have become more mature and I am as riveted by their content as she is. Oftentimes I'm more excited to get to the night reading than she is. When we are done reading, Lucia takes off her glasses, turns off her bedside lamp, and we have a "chitty-chat"-- a short debrief of the day or a conversation about what's on her mind. Sometimes it's a question about what I was like as a kid or something related to the book we are reading. Other times the chat is related a political issue in our world or something going on with her friends at school.

Recently during our "chitty-chat," Lucia said, "Mom, why do you think I'm like this at night?"

"Like how?" I asked.

"No matter what happens during the day, I always feel so loving and kind at night when we get into bed and read" she explained.

I'm not sure how I answered, but I think about this all the time. Our nightly reading ritual is a a very peaceful part of the day. It's a twenty-minute infusion of calm. When I teach yoga, I often describe the classas a "moving meditation," a time to slow down the mind, even as the body is moving. The reading ritual that Lucia and I share is similar. Like Savasana, it is a familiar ritual that we do every night. Though the content might be different in the book we are reading or the conversation we are having, the ceremony of it is the same. There is a comfort and safety that allows for a deep state of relaxation and openness (or as Lucia describes it, being "loving" and "kind").

I occasionally panic about the inevitable ending of this nightly practice. Will Lucia want to stop when she's fourteen? Sixteen? Tomorrow? I have no way of knowing the answer. For now, I relish our time together every night.