Bacon Little has been dabbing everywhere. From celebrations to gatherings to hangouts, while Tea Love has been spinning around the buzz of the end of the school year like the latest and greatest fidget spinner with bright lights emitted at each 360-degree turn.
As Bacon Little was prepping for his 5th grade graduation, he slipped on his navy blazer, his navy chinos, and red chucks then grabbed ahold of his lapel gazing up at Tea Love with a smile and excitedly said, “I’m swaggin’!”
“It’s the end of an era and the beginning of a new adventure,” Tea Love thought to herself as she was preparing to celebrate the last day that Bacon Little stepped foot on the elementary campus.
She continued to probe the meaning of this transition.
“The formative years are behind and the middle years start now,” she stated with awkward relief and slight anxiety.
11 years in the making for this moment in time that marks a pivotal transition in Bacon Little’s life. There are beginnings and endings all around us. We begin and end each new day with limitless possibilities. We begin a conversation and end it with sweet good-byes. But, this beginning and ending was quite different for Tea Love. The moment reminded her of how important the ground is beneath our feet.
“The formative years are like the ground beneath our feet,” Tea Love wrote in her journal.
She continued with such fervent understanding, “If the ground is solid, the next steps will feel supported and safe.”
She put her pen down, gazed out the window noting the sunrays coming through the blinds and shining on her knees and thought, “The path to self-discovery requires some form of solid ground because the process itself is so chaotic and full of unpredictable motion.”
Sometimes we are forced into self-discovery from uneven grounds that hold no space for any feeling of support or safety. Most of the time we don’t know that we are stepping into this uneven terrain. If we did know, we would run and run very far and fast from it. The outcome of this particular process can be very destructive or very constructive.
“As aware parents, we desire to give our kids the best solid ground to walk on so they can trip multiple times and have the strength to get back up,” Tea Love noted in her journal while still sipping the morning’s lukewarm tea.
“You are so savage, Mom!” Bacon Little declared with pride and honor.
Tea Love had just finished teaching Bacon Little’s friends her very own “Dab and Fly” and with that kind of declaration it was apparent that Bacon Little was stepping on firm ground as he closed down the last few days in the chapter of his formative years.
“He hasn’t always stood so tall and, of course, neither have I,” thought Tea Love in that moment.
Her heart was filled with gratitude and also pained with the knowledge that this glorious experience was littered with many falls.
Bacon Little had already started parts of his chaotic middle year journey. Tea Love no doubt was hoping that he was an early bird in this regard and that Bacon Little’s recent falls were no indicator of something more, above, and beyond what could happen in the process of self-discovery that wraps its shaken arms around us like prisoners in our own body fighting each moment as if we were escaping the very cells that created us.
“He had one of the firmest grounds to walk on in his formative years, but life saw his path differently and shook the ground beneath his feet when he lost his father his 3rd grade year,” Tea Love said to herself as she got up from her writing chair and put the empty tea cup in the sink.
“A true warrior does not train on even ground for the battle of life and all its shapes and contours requires astute attention to the varied levels each one of us walks,” Tea Love wrote quickly on her post-it note for review later during her writing time.
Tea Love’s dab and fly seemed to epitomize this process with movements of the body. Each time we move our forehead in the direction of the elbow we physically exhibit falling and each time we raise our hand and arms towards the sky we show the world and ourselves that we choose to soar no matter what ground life has us stepping on.
Dab and Fly.
“I suppose he’s ready,” Tea Love said to herself as she smiled at him in his navy blazer and chinos.
It didn’t take long for the tears to start rolling down her cheeks.
“I’ve given you the firmest ground to step on and life shook it up in ways that have given you the wisdom and courage at a young age to do great things in light and love,” said Tea Love as she toasted Bacon Little with glasses in hand and the ice clinking like the latest rap rhythms debuting on YouTube.
In the process of self-discovery, we will fall and we will get back up. The best kind of ground to walk on is the firm ground that sends us propelling into the varied contours of getting to know ourselves in ways that strike the match, sharpen the sword, and seize the day.
Dab and Fly.
And Soar.
Om Shanti Om ~ Athea
