I Want to Be Six

I went on a field trip with Luke and his kindergarten class the other day. We piled on the bus, and rode to our destination: the train “station”. There’s a scenic train ride not far from our town, and it’s a big deal when this field trip rolls around every year.

There were two fun things I observed that day about myself:

I do not want to work with a load of 20+ 6-year-olds (bless the teachers who do this day in and day out),

and I wish I was allowed to act like a curious 6-year-old.

We loaded onto the train and I sat with Luke and two little guys from his class. At one point, I realized we could probably open the window up but I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to. His teacher was sitting right behind me, and I weirdly felt like I might get in trouble. I didn’t know what the protocol was, but I figured, hey, I’m an adult and I can make adult choices too, right? Up went the windows. For the next 20 minutes, these boys loved putting their hands out the windows, reaching around to the other windows and knocking on them, watching the scenery go by. They rested their heads on their arms and enjoyed the sun on their faces. When it started to sprinkle, they stuck their arms out and watched the raindrops land on their little hands.

I had to keep reminding them to “keep your cheeks in seats” and not lean out too far, but honestly, that too was not because I thought they were being unsafe, but because I didn’t want to seem irresponsible, or get in trouble.

Truth is, I wanted to lean out the window myself. I wanted to reach out and try to grab a leaf off the trees. I wanted to wave and shout to the people standing by the tracks. I wanted to turn my face toward the rain and catch drops in my mouth.

Not long ago, I was sitting in an incredibly busy airport, watching two kids swing their little sister between them. She squealed with delight every time, even as the parents kept turning to hurry them along. Long lines weren’t a burden to them, crowded seating areas were merely an obstacle course. They were oblivious to the annoyances that the adults around them were fixated on. I envisioned myself for a moment doing something childlike in the airport, and that vision was quickly followed by one of being taken down by TSA.

Acting childlike is really frowned on, but why?

I wonder if it boils down to safety. People feel safe when they know what type of behavior to expect from people. And we don’t expect adults to sing loudly in public, sit on the floor and cry when they’re disappointed, or lean their bodies out of a train window and laugh into the wind.

Did you know that evolutionary scientists believe that music came before language? To me, that maybe means that expressing emotion came before expressing logic. Expressing emotion is something that kids are super duper at. It takes time for them to develop filters, and you don’t have to look far to find evidence of this. Just go into a public restroom where a woman is there with her toddler (“Mommy, did you poop?”).

What if something unfortunate happens when we begin to rely so heavily on our decision-making brains? What if we start to over-emphasize the importance of traits like decision-making and logic and neglect things like play and wonder and creativity?

There’s an interesting documentary called The Divided Brain, where Dr. Ian McGilchrist hypothesizes that in western culture especially we rely heavily on the logical left brain. Academics, employment, and money follow analytical thinking. It would be stupid to neglect left-brain strengths, but not any stupider than neglecting right-brain strengths. Thing is, we all have both. We’ve got that side of us that wants to cut loose, go with the flow, explore, wonder, and be curious, and the side of us that wants to make sense of everything we see and experience. We want to categorize, organize and analyze our lives.

There’s a lot of talk in spiritual circles of the masculine and feminine energies, and just like our two-sided brains, we all have both. The masculine is more focused on things, and the feminine on people. The masculine is form and the feminine is flow. We get ourselves into emotional trouble when we try to be more of one thing than comes naturally to us. There’s an equilibrium that is unique to each person, and the trick is to find out what that is below the layers of shoulds and societal pressures.

So how does all this left/right brain, masculine/feminine, child/adult stuff come together?

For me, it’s about finding my jam. Listening to that inner voice that wants to delight in the world, create marvelous things, embrace routine and logic, daydream in the sunshine, structure my life, and plan for the future. It’s like turning the knob on a radio until I find my own station through the static. Finding my resonance.

Then when I do, cranking up the volume and dancing through life with joy.