Beauty of Boredom






Last week, every afternoon there was a new guideline imposed about social distancing: no gatherings over 100 people, now only 10 people, libraries closing, playgrounds off limits, stay at home if you can… and my children watched me erase one thing after another off our family calendar, until it was just a book of blank pages. Their feelings were intense.
It had started to get really ugly here. One of my kids even tearfully shouted, “I’m just tired of being here with all of you, I need to see other people!” Bitterness was settling in. The announcement about playgrounds incited a small riot in my home. And I was like, “Guys! How many times were we going to play on a playground in the next few weeks? It’s March! The slides are all wet anyway.” 
The tension continued building until everyone’s nerves were over tightened. I had a heart-to-heart with my kids and said, “Listen, I know this is hard. But looking at the world news and talking to our friends that live in other countries, we need to accept that the direction this is headed is that we will be quarantined in the next few days. And we need to recognize that, while we are quarantined to our lovely five acres with pets and farm animals and lots of food in the pantry, others are quarantined in their apartments.” 
I’d love to say their response was a beautiful change in attitude; it wasn’t, but sulky silence can be a big improvement over complaint, and is often the first step toward a beautiful change in attitude. And then it happened: the next day, the governor announced his stay at home order. And… my kids were great. Their exact words: “Finally! Now we can just stay home and get this quarantine over with!” Not the most inspiring words, but then they launched into a list of all the fun things they would do while we are stuck at home.

We now have a zip line over our creek, and a new tire swing. I find it a little disturbing that I have no idea where the tire came from, maybe I should go check out our cars, but I am enjoying watching my 12 year old push his 5 year old brother on a new swing. And then I see it. Of course fighting hasn’t completely ceased, but I see my children standing in relaxed postures, smiling at each other.  Friends. This is the gift of boredom: my children are rediscovering each other as friends and allies. 
This is the gift every mother’s heart prizes most. Isn’t it what I say every year around Mother’s Day? I just want a day where you guys are nice to each other.

As I have navigated this week of new challenges (celebrating a child’s 8th birthday “quarantine-style,” coping with annoyance at everyone in my space, trying to practice some healthy social distancing between myself and the heavily-stocked refrigerator), I also am feeling the freedom of a simpler and stripped back lifestyle. I listened to a podcast this week between Jen Hatmaker and Shauna Niequist, where Shauna says, “The circumstances of our life will not always line up for happiness and joy. We’re responsible for being on the lookout all the time for joy and for gratitude.”
What a beautiful invitation: be on the lookout. And what fabulous timing. She said those words months ago in a live interview, but the podcast was just recently posted. There’s a new invitation in this simplified space to take an observant posture, isn’t there?

I am beginning to notice the gifts. My daughter and I went for a bike ride last night on the nearly-empty country roads around our home. I’ll tell you: people have never looked so interesting to me as they do when I spot one now! There were moments Eden and I were calling out to each other, “Look, a person, look what they are doing!” And while we were biking, my daughter let loose thoughts about her dreams for her future, and dove deeply into conversation with me.

My 12 year old son picked up one of my favorite parenting books this week, The Happiest Kids in the World, by Rina Mae Acosta and Michele Hutchison (an insightful look into the culture of Dutch parenting, inspired by a UNICEF report that declared Dutch children as ranking the highest for overall happiness and wellbeing), and plowed through ⅔ of it in the first day. When I asked him why he was reading this book, he said, “I don’t know. I thought it would be interesting, and maybe it would help me understand you better, and help me be understood more by you.” Now, before you get overly dazzled by my kid’s maturity, I should also mention that it later came to my attention that my husband had had a conversation with this child the day before about a certain sensitive and grown up topic that inspires much curiosity in the minds of young men, and he specifically referenced this book... 
I peeked into my son’s room while he was reading it, and he had a dictionary open on his lap. Funny story: once upon a time, I used a homeschool curriculum that put a heavy emphasis on dictionary skills. My kids mutinied. I gave up, and decided that they could teach themselves to use a dictionary someday. Well, someday is today, apparently, because as it so happens, there comes a moment in a young man’s life where it is less embarrassing to look a word up in the dictionary than ask his mom what it means. Another gift from the boredom fairy. 

Other gifts: my children have been digging away in our sadly neglected vegetable garden, that I wasn’t necessarily planning to revive this year. They've been making plans, and even dug a well in the middle, and made their own winch system for hauling up water with a bucket! And my daughter, Eden, decided to read all my old blogs. My son Declan, decided to triple up on his math lessons, so that he can get done with his book sooner, and not have to worry about his workbook when he is free to play with friends again. And we have been video chatting with friends in other countries and hearing their accounts of what is going on where they are.

When I step back and take an observant posture, I am positively overwhelmed at the gifts I can name. Goodness, the struggle is real, and the crankiness and boredom have brought out some revolting behaviors and tantrums: like when my husband yelled, “stop yelling!,” or when I pointed out how ugly it is when my daughter points out how ugly her brother is being. Clearly the rotten attitudes do not solely belong to the children. But the gifts are there too, and it is my responsibility to train my eye to see them.

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