When I was in college, the Peking Acrobats came to town. It
was really quite something, watching person after person climb up, building a
precarious human pyramid. As the tower got higher, the people on the pyramid got
smaller and smaller. That didn’t help the men on the bottom much, though,
because having 20 small people on top of you is still very heavy.
Uncharacteristically, the tiny girls near the top of the pyramid bobbled and
seemed to slip. They managed to recover, which we recognized with applause.
I remember when ‘It Takes a Village’ to raise a child came
out, and I thought of how so many of my aunts/uncles and cousins took care of
me. How my Paw-paw, and partner in crime, did all he could to spoil me and
protect me from my parents who tried to keep me in line. Being home this past
week reminded me of how different my life was from my little Boop’s. We’re
working on building our ‘village,’ but it’s much slower than having my family
close by. Rather, I feel a bit more like we’re those Peking Acrobats with my
little Boop on top.
When we got back from the trip, there was a package from my
grad school friend, S, an SMC. Her little boy, W, is about a year older than my
little Boop. She’s given me much help along the way, getting me hooked in with
the SMC group. Then, I think of my other grad school friend, M, on her own away
from family with her two little ones. And I think about how things are still a
bit precarious for us. I keep telling myself that we’ll get better at this with
time, and that even though we may bobble a bit, little Boop will be just fine.
In the meantime, we’ll keep working on building those connections around us.
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