A unique privilege

On the kind of day when I look out at the rain and mist and breathe a prayer of thankfulness that I have no visitors staying, no children hoping for a visit to the beach or an adventure in the forest, I find myself reflecting - for solace, as it were - on what it is that makes being a grandparent so special. Remember, I never thought of myself as the maternal type - until my first son was born. Then I was maternal, but actually only towards him, and towards the second son who followed four years later. I still found other people's children attractive only insofar as they met my criteria, not simply because they were children, and I taught adolescents in the assumption that they were doing what the name suggests - growing older, becoming people. And I liked people.

So when my sons were men and became husbands and announced that they were to be fathers, I was not at all sure how that would feel. Maybe mothers are always like that; it's not something I've discussed. And then the babies were born and my world was turned upside down for the second time in my life. The connection to these tiny infants was unbelievable in its impact, maternal instinct or no. What today's reflection consolidated was that for almost seven years now I've enjoyed the immense privilege of a chance to experience the uncritical acceptance and love from children who seem to know, whether we meet frequently or seldom, that there is a bond that can be trusted and a love that will never be withheld. I regard it as a unique privilege, even though it is shared by other grandparents, because it is unique in any one life - unique and undreamed-of.

When we are parents, we are so busy being parents that we tend not to notice the passage of time other than in landmarks like walking, talking and teeth. Our own lives are so full with the minutiae of care that there is little time to reflect - and then the time has passed, the children are drifting out of our orbit, sharing their lives with increasing numbers of strangers, becoming people just as we did before them. There is a sense of a faint regret, perhaps, but we are caught up in the amazement that these new people came from us, and the anxiety or exhilaration that surrounds their achievements. Finally, they leave - and I think sons do this more conclusively than daughters - and the cycle begins again.

The grandchildren, that golden second chance to be with children and love them and have them smother you in sticky kisses and tell you they are going to miss you when they say goodbye, come and bring with them that added bonus of perspective. A grandparent knows all too well how swiftly that chariot careers along on its breathless wings; this grandparent has learned that every moment - even the tired, grumpy moment - has to be cherished and savoured like a mouthful of fine wine, like the perfect cadence hanging in the silence that applause will soon break.

And that is why I will walk away from other demands if my family, my two-generational family, asks me to; that is why I defer final commitment to other tasks; that is why I add caveats to most of the arrangements I make these days. For it is a fact that to be a grandmother who can tell interesting stories and supply adventures when asked, I still need to be living my own interesting life - so there are arrangements made, commitments given, and life sometimes feels almost as hectic as it was when I was a young parent.

The difference is that I can lay a great deal of it aside. And when I have to be grandma, I do.

LIfe in the bubble of wonder

On the boat
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

Do you remember being a child? Oh, yes ... all these years ago ... But do you really remember? Do you ever find yourself re-inhabiting that wonderful bubble that could enclose you when you were small, when your imaginative world was the be all and end all; when the world of adults was an enabling machine, but little to do with you? Or are you so caught up in the business of being a grown-up that the bubble has long since burst, scattered like the rainbow, now only a damp circle on the concrete of your life?

I'm reading Michael Mayne's book This Sunrise of Wonder - at last, Jim, if you're reading this! - and it's fair got me thinking. Especially after last weekend, when I was visiting a Thomas the Tank Engine paradise with my four grandchildren and their assorted parents. Before we all headed away from the hotel and the theme park, we spent a couple of hours in a nearby playpark. The contrast with the theme-park rides was striking. Yes, there were swings and roundabouts, but there were also climbing frames and the wonderful galleon in the photo. And it was the galleon that kept all four of them playing together the longest. I could hear the oldest allotting roles to the others, who weren't really paying much attention; the smallest child was ferrying sand to the top of the chute that is just visible exiting the hull in the bottom corner; another had purloined a bottle of water the better to demonstrate the drainage the same chute afforded. There was another hiding under the deck, and the strange child that found himself in the middle of the gang was pressed into service as a pirate. And no-one wanted to come away.

And the combination of the book and the grandchildren's enjoyment of imaginative play brought an epiphany. I could remember my childhood bubble. And what was better: I could remember it in such a way that I could feel it again, feel it the way I did when I was under ten (the family moved house when I was ten; it's a useful watershed in my library of mental images of childhood). Here are some of the stand-outs:
  Sitting on the grass in front of our holiday house in Arran, around 6pm on the first of July, gazing at the hills at the head of Glen Cloy, smelling the bog-myrtle on the breeze, ready to burst with happiness because the summer was a lifetime long and I was back in the place I loved more than any other.
 Walking behind the rest of my family after a trip to the cinema - alone, because I was in a movie and Byres Road was actually Dodge City and a dangerous environment.
  Playing under and on top of the kitchen table, because it was a boat. The trick was to get onto the top without falling into the sea of the rest of the floor.
  Spending hours in a hollowed-out rhododendron bush with a few friends as the Arran rain teemed down, happy as could be because our 'house' kept the rain out.
  Looking forward to time alone - on a bus, on a train, in my bed - because I wanted to "think" - which I now realise was re-entering a bubble which was always there.
  Climbing rocks on the shore in the conviction that I was on a sheer rock-face on some distant mountain.

I could actually go on all day. Even writing these makes me feel I want to go out to play. The point is that it was all wonderful. Imagination took me way beyond what anyone else would have seen. On the odd occasion when I have a grandchild to myself, I like to put that child into a situation where they too will wonder at something I love - is this because I now need an excuse to be child-like?

Dammit. I don't need excuses. I'm fortunate in that I worked with young people for my whole life - ok, they were teenagers, not tots, but they were amazingly easy to make young again with a little encouragement. I was able to avoid growing up. I grow old, I grow old ... but I'm not going to succumb to the equivalent of Eliot's rolled trouser-bottoms: no. I may have reached the cardigan/tweed skirt era beloved of a previous grown-up generation, but there's nothing appealing there. Who cares what the world thinks?

I've had a taste of life in the bubble again. The life of wonder has been re-awakened, and it's ... wonderful.

Grandparents in charge

Sampling the sea
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

Strange, isn't it? I've been out of teaching for five years and I still slide into school holiday mode as far as any kind of regular activity goes. Blogging is one of them - though I have noticed a distinct downturn in others' productivity as well. But this last week I've had a cast iron excuse: a three-year-old. Catriona came to stay on her own for the first time in her 2 years 11 months and Mr B and I realised why we didn't compose symphonies or write the novel when we were younger.

It wasn't just that she was sleeping in the study where all work gets done. I can quite easily use the laptop elsewhere. It was rather the constant need to be there, interacting or simply vigilant, for 12 hours a day, at the end of which we were too exhausted to do anything other than stare slack-jawed at an hour or so of telly and then slope off to bed. And the responsibility of watching over someone else's child struck me with even greater force than I remember from these first weeks on my own with my firstborn.

Part of it is the very fact of being older - not just in terms of stamina, for sometimes I think I have more of that, but in the knowledge of what can go wrong (you've been there), in the inability to carry said child for more than a minute or two without collapsing. There is, however, an interesting new dimension. You see, grandparents exist to be jolly, imperturbable, accommodating and indulgent. If you're in sole charge over four days you can't be that way all the time because you have to do the annoying things:

No, Annabelle can't come out on the scooter. (Annabelle is an unreasonably solid doll which weighs the same as a real baby. I conceived an intense dislike for her after having her in church with us)
No, you can't watch another episode of Peppa Pig. It's dinnertime.
No, you can't stay on the beach for another hour - it'll get dark if we're not careful.

But the best moment, one which had us both in tucks, came when I was lifting her into her booster seat at the table. Just as I reached the point of greatest tension - arms at shoulder-height to get her feet under the table, muscles trembling with the effort - Catriona wanted Annabelle. Again. And I heard myself say, in tones of intense irritation: "Ewan!"

Now, if you'd asked me if I had problems bringing up my children I'd probably - at this safe distance - have said "Oh, no - they were lovely - no bother really after the teething and so on." It wouldn't be fear of the consequences either. I seem to have airbrushed the memory, that's all. But at that moment it all flooded back. The arguments, the reasoning required before doing something mundane, the sudden imperative about a stone or a handful of cut grass ... It was all there. And suddenly I wasn't Grandma any more, as a kink in time brought the years together.

By the end of the visit, I'd called Catriona "Ewan" twice, and Mr B did it on the prom while wrestling with the scooter. (Its back wheels need slackening, Ewan!) But it was great fun. To see a tiny child heaving her body-weight in stones into the sea, to have her draw "spotty faces" (she's seen someone with freckles), to sit on the beach pretending to eat shell-and-sand-and-seaweed pies while the waves lapped gently and everyone else went home - this was wonderful. Interestingly, she spoke French only once in the whole visit, and then translated for me - though we marvelled at the way she pronounced "crème fraîche" when she wanted more. (We gave her it. I can't do that French "r" to save myself, and she does it so wonderfully.)

And when she made her cheeky face and grinned at me, it was like looking at myself. Oh dear.

I've been struggling to add a grave accent to the "e" in crème. I'm grateful to @bagpie and @spodzone for their assistance.