Connections

After more than two years of ignoring the fireplace, suddenly Booba has been getting soot on socks, toys, fingers, cheeks and everything else. It has been extremely frustrating and just was not making any sense to me. Until yesterday. Booba told me that presents come from the fireplace—ah, the light bulb above my head was bright.

I have never talked to Booba about Santa Claus. I didn’t grow up believing in Santa—I was very aware that presents did not come out of a magical void, that there was definitely a cost associated with them. Especially since I don’t celebrate Christmas, there seemed no need to seed an impressionable mind with what I consider nonsense. So, if we lived in a bubble, Booba would never believe that getting dirty in the fireplace will result in presents. We do not live in a bubble. I have a job and while I am at said job, Booba goes to a daycare where they apparently discuss magic elves delivering gifts through chimneys.

Finally understanding just why soot is suddenly an issue in my house, I yearned for the bubble—that safe place where I wouldn’t have to worry about outside influences teaching my child questionable things. I could postpone all those philosophical discussions I’m certainly not trying to have with a two year old.

One day’s frustration aside, I really don’t want that bubble. I appreciate the women at the daycare, who love my child and take care of Booba when I’m working. They teach him about shapes, skipping, and sharing. He gets to practice having friends, including apologizing when he hurts his friends. I appreciate my relatives whose houses don’t have the same rules as mine, who care for my child, even when they don’t do things the same way I would.

I realize that who I am, who Booba is, who we are as a family, only exist in the context of our extended family, our community, our city, our peoples, our nation, our world, our universe. I give thanks for the connections that bind us, uphold us, and lift us, despite my smaller moments when I just want that bubble. I set my intention to live more in the us, and less in the me.

Habari gani? Umoja! Today, my spirit celebrates unity.