My kids ground me, right? They keep me honest. They see right through me. I used to avoid having photos of them at work, because glancing at them cut me so deeply, it momentarily bamboozled me.

Now, though, I like that kind of jolt. They are so honest and true and transparent, it makes me consider my role afresh, every day. It keeps me honest.

Often, looking in their eyes, the words of Peter Mathiessen come to me:

“Soon the child’s clear eye is clouded over…“

But not yet, not yet. They see clearly now, for sure. All too clearly.

Later, Mathiessen believes,

“ The sun glints through the pines and the heart is pierced in a moment of beauty and strange pain, like a memory of paradise. After that day, we become seekers.”

Oh, yes. My kids are that sun, that glint. I have become a seeker, and I thank them for that every day.

Later in the day, late at night, long after they are asleep, I go into their room to check on them, to whisper ‘je t’aime mon amour” in their ears and tuck them back in.

I watch them for a while, their eyes closed, dreaming. It seems to me that this is the time for me to see through them. I stare at their beautiful heads, and I give back to them, in my own way, some of the joy they give me during the day. And I think of ee cummings,

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)”

and then I go to bed, and I too can become a dreamer.

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