However, this isn't new information, or even particularly interesting information; so why am I discussing it? Here's why:
In a past blog post of mine, i talked about certain bedtime rituals that I did with my kids... specifically, little boy and little girl stories. I mentioned that some day the tradition would end, and I would be sad. Well, that time has come and gone, and the bedtime ritual now is to watch YouTube music videos. The only one of my three children that still wants to do this is my youngest, and it is one of our traditions. What we watch varies from time to time, or not at all. My daughter will want to watch the same thing for weeks, and then out of the blue, things change...
For awhile we watched Gowan videos, then we watched Men Without Hats videos, then we watched Donny Osmond in Joseph and His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat videos, and the list goes on. The cool thing about all of this is that changing from something old to something new by watching something old has been rather enjoyable. Who knows, I might yet get the opportunity to tell some more little boy and little girl stories, however, I won't despair about things that have slipped to the wayside because what it comes down to is not what I do to spend time with my children, but that I do spend time with my children. The few precious moments I get almost every evening go by fairly fast, and I leave my daughter's room far sooner than I like. However, I have come to realize that by filling my normal time with pockets of speed time, the slow time will occur less and less, and even though it may seem like my time is slipping away, it is doing so and creating memories at the same time.
I will end this post with one of my favourite poems that in a rather powerful way sums up how I feel about life, experience, and the passage of time:
Ulysses
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
