I See People Walking Around Like Trees
In a previous post, I mentioned a brief panic over our infant son’s developing eyesight.
By now though, the initial frenzy has worn off, because Justus’ incessant grunting and leaning and stretching indicate not only that he can see, but that he can whine about what he sees. Its a bittersweet celebration.
Justus’ eyesight still has some comedic value, however, as he seems to see sort of like the blind man who Jesus heals, who can see but can’t really comprehend what he’s viewing. He reports back to Jesus that he can see “people walking around like trees.”
There seems to be a gap between what Justus sees and what he understands as well. Hence, if he is standing in his walker and sees an iced tea bottle four feet away, he begins to lean over the side of the walker, grimacing as he tries to stretch his chubby, four-rolls-of-fat arm far enough to grab hold of it. It does not matter that his arm is not even one foot long, let alone four feet long, nor would it matter if it were ten feet away. If Justus could see it, he would still contort himself into all kinds of uncomfortable positions attempting to reach for it.
While observing an infant, its hard not to see metaphors of yourself, tiny and under-equipped against such an uncooperative world. I think we are all, in our own way, stretching for things outside of our grasp, contorting ourselves into painful positions in an attempt to grab hold of things we can visualize yet lay beyond our reach.
Like my little one, I am impatient and crabby about what I can’t have. I am only marginally satisfied with slower and less accomodating outcomes–waiting until life takes us to a new position where we can clasp onto the things we want, relying on some larger force to intervene and graciously hand us the object of our desire, or sometimes ceasing our desperate flailing and reaching for something within our capacity rather than exhausting ourselves over what we can’t have.
The other option of course is growing, letting the slow process of change take place, where we like Justus will develop new abilities, new maturity, improved ability to get around, to manage our energy supply in a more thoughtful and balanced attempt to reach the things we want.
To read the previous post on the panic over Justus’ eyesight, click here.