Falling for Flow

I spent yesterday with my seven year old son thrashing through the waves on Miami Beach. We arrived early for the SoBe crowd and promptly claimed top tier beach chaises like conquerors. The holy grail of a beach day, prime real estate. One day post new moon, we were undoubtedly positioned for a golden moment.

The sky was almost impossibly perfect grey blue with polka dots of sunshine peering through ambiguous clouds. I anticipated the water to be bracing in collusion with that paradoxical sky, but it was warm, alluring. It also boasted a wicked undertow.

Every temptress has a mesmerizing shadow. As I was mentally assessing all that was a potential hazard in this suddenly not so innocent, irresistable water play, a clandestine wave knocked me off my imagined pedestal causing me to drop my son’s hand and my bathing suit top.

I rose from all fours with sand in every orifice, stuffing errant breasts into my tank suit, a strong taste of humility, fear, and salt coating my throat. Am I an ignorant, dangerous mother whose beloved only child is going to be swept into the ocean due to my insufficiency? I started to blame, judge myself as impulsive and careless. It was then that I looked ate my son’s wet face- he was sparkling. He had that sublime twinkle of excitement that manifests from simultaneously touching fear and excitement simultaneously. You can never duplicate it if you try. It simply arises from pure moments of passion, creation, and being in your FLOW.

He was flowing with the water. He wasn't judging anything about the situation that had knocked him off his feet. He only knew that it had created a feeling, the thrill of what happens when the unknown comes to town. He also knew he was safe. He found his balance as a testament to his strength, not his ineptitude. He could stand, he found the intra body sand deposits hysterical. “Let’s do it again, Mommy.”

He looked at me with the admiration that comes less often these days. Addicted to the high of his approval I agreed, and also felt my heart do its own little dance. It was fun. Getting knocked down, means getting knocked down, nothing more. I can make no moral judgements or character assessments from my communion with nature. She is mighty and uncontrollable, I think that is why I resisted her for so long. I sought relationship only with things I could control.

Connecting with your wild child means taking some risks, play is synonymous with fun not security. What I’m seeing is risks inside structure create the expansion we crave. We can really only open up when we feel held. I wasn’t in deep water, so I could afford to let myself be thrown. The more I did it, the more I loved it. We took one more big hit holding hands, and decided we had reached our limit. The true magic arises in knowing when to stop, the miraculous edge.

Sipping banana juice, wrapped in fluffy beach towels, we cuddled and closed our eyes. I won’t always be able to protect him, but I have shown him for a moment, what it’s like to allow all of life to rush at you and how to stand again after you fall.

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