You know how sometimes you can write a word, one you've spelled accurately all your life, and suddenly it looks incorrect, how you can stare at the letters for too long and wonder whether they're lined up right.
I feel like I do that to myself, glare at my body long enough that it begins to look wrong.
And as hard on myself as I can be, I'm afraid I'm sometimes harder on Tuck. I mean, we don't wake up to be mediocre around here. But he should be allowed to make mistakes. He's six, and he's sensitive and he wants so much to please.
He forgets his lunchbox at school, dumps the last few sips of my watered down iced coffee so he and a buddy can use the cup in the sand pit, he makes a million mazes right next to the door so we're tracking in chalk dust all day, gets distracted by gears and plays instead of pajamas.
Listed here, it is clear to me that none of this should matter.
I fume gracelessly over the uneaten rice, over the absent-minded shower and the wet towels on the floor. I require so much of him and maybe not quite enough of myself. Or maybe the wrong things of myself. I perseverate on calories when I should be making patience my intention.
It's hard to be human. It's easy to snap when things don't go the way I want, but after a deep breath it's even easier to forgive his minor slips. He is six and he is far from mediocre. I sure hope he forgets my impatience and my angry moments and my meal disappointments.
I apologize to him, not for the first time today. If I want him to turn a forgiving lens toward himself, I must too. I soak up bath water with the towel that's already underfoot and I remember that he is just a boy, that he is a sponge. I want to be sure that what I pour into him is enough, so when the rest of the world wrings him out, he still trickles grace.
Grace. I know how to spell that.
