After nearly losing a dear friend last month, I'm acutely aware of the fragility and transience of life. Even in the best of times, we lose - constantly. Entering the world, we lose our home, evicted from our cozy, all-inclusive uterine resort. So we learn to nourish ourselves, only to lose breast and bottle to the weaning process. And that's just the beginning: as a teacher once put it, life is a series of weanings. Nannies are relinquished, teachers find new students, grandparents succumb to old age, pets to shortened lifespans, people we love go away. And that's if you're lucky.
Change brings loss. There's no stopping it - though who hasn't tried? Loss and separation are inevitable, accumulating throughout life till life itself is lost. Yes, change is necessary for growth; only by letting go of the old can we embrace the new. Give up the breast, get an ice cream sundae.
But I don't like it. It hurts, being ripped away, again and again and again. Mastering these inevitable, necessary losses is essential, but sometimes, I don't know how anyone manages.
One strategy: Hide-and-Seek. Is there a better way to practice losing someone? Over and over, an agonizing drama is staged:
You left me! where are you? But in the game, the tables are turned: what's lost is found. No harm done. Just kidding. Sigmund Freud wrote about a boy who repeatedly threw all his toys into corners and under beds. The thrill, Freud realized, came later, when the abandoned toys were retrieved. The game helped the boy learn to say goodbye to his mother without sobbing.
Here in Sodenland, we take our hide-and-seek seriously. Peek-a-boo (
or as Xela says, Ticky-boo) distills the game to its essence:
peekaboo, where are you? you're gone?
ahh, you're back! Both games, in endless variations, seem to crop up constantly on our daily adventures. Two recent examples:
1. At the playground, climbing and swinging are fun, but the best part?
this cabin, perfect for sudden disappearing acts.
(shhhh, I'm hiding...)
Ticky-Boo!
2. Walking through another park, we spy something shiny... a golden shoe! Turns out, golden shoes are hidden throughout Cambridge each spring, inspiring people to explore the city by foot. As reward for our shoe, we won a bag full of treats and coupons. Hide-and-seek practice is paying off.
our golden shoe
we win!
Time for me to disappear again... but not for long!
xoxo
xela
no cavities!
