Feeding the soul...

I had to stop for gas the other day, and the kids were getting impatient. They wanted to go home. I had promised them something as a bribe to get them into the car and they were eager to have their reward. So, when I pulled into the gas station, they started to object bitterly. Like any normal mom, I was eager to avoid screaming, so I appealed to their logic and decided to explain why we needed to gas up the car.

I know… don’t laugh. First…logic in 3 year olds? Uhm, Right…. Second, how could you possibly explain the need to gas up a car to such a young child? But as a trained language teacher, I hold the firm belief that most concepts can be explained to most people. It’s all a matter of using the right language.

Here’s what I said.

I explained that our car was hungry and that if we didn’t give it food, it would stop going. I further explained that gas is the food that cars like best. Silence from the back of the car. I was about to really mock myself for even presuming that my words would have significance when, from the back of the car, came a little toddler voice.

“The car is hungry?” My daughter inquired?

“Yes” I confirmed, hiding my surprise. “The car is very hungry. If we don’t give it food, it won’t be able to take us home.”

She paused and narrowed her eyes in thought.

“And gas is food?” My daughter continued.

“Yes, honey.” I smiled at her. “Cars love to eat gas. It’s their favorite food.”

“Oh” she said. And smiled. She got it.

My son didn’t speak during the conversation, but his eyes were following us and processing the words the whole time. If I had to make an educated guess, based on his facial expressions, I think he understood as well.  At the very least, he nodded and smiled at the right times to make me believe so.

 I should have known that my kids would understand anything if I related it to food.

But it got me thinking. It got me thinking about the many different ways that we “go” and the different kinds of “food” that we need in order to facilitate that movement.

While this connection might seem random to some, it made sense to me. I firmly believe that this thought came to me because I have hit a point in my life where I recognize the vast amount of ME that has been lost in the process of becoming a mom of twins. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not really complaining.  It’s just that before kids, I was pretty creative. I made jewelry. I loved to cook recipes with multiples steps and that required their own trip to the supermarket. In winter, I would spend most of a Saturday morning and afternoon cooking and listening to music. I even went through a phase, a few years back, of making my own candles and they looked pretty nice.  I read tons of books and could list off authors that I enjoyed and respected.

Now, not so much. Two infants don’t really leave you much time for personal enrichment, to put it mildly. With my kids starting preschool and getting older (and consequently more independent) I am starting to get back to being that previous form of me. But it takes work. And it takes food. Not in the literal sense, of course, but in the figurative sense.  The down time a brain requires to fuel such creativity just does not occur these days and the creative fatigue brought on by the inevitable survival mode does not facilitate the levels of creativity I used to reach. I just don’t get the opportunity to feed my soul the way I used to.

But it’s getting better every day. I’m back to making jewelry sometimes and writing time is back to being a priority. (Evidenced by this blog, of course). I’m feeding my creative brain as much and as often as I can and the progress feels wonderful.

There really are all kinds of food in life.