So, my wingman is the youngest of three.
He’s different from his sisters. Not only does he have a Y where they have an X, he likes action movies rather than musicals; the physical rather than the cerebral; and is always arguing his right to have any say in the games they play.
It wasn’t always this way. He is the only air sign in our house of earth and water. Meaning that to keep the balance and the peace, he was always happy to dress up in frills to be included in his sister’s world of make believe play. He could change a doll in under a minute, knew the names of all the barbies and could curl up and make small animal noises. Thus becoming the pet in their intricate games.
But about 2 months ago, things really shifted for my wingman. He discovered cards.
Football cards.
And along with the cards came football.
AFL football.
And with this discovery, his ability to want to keep the peace and balance in our home seemed to leach out through his testosterone fuelled skin.
The cards bought long syllabled names into our home. Steele Sidebottom and Nic Naitanui became part of his regular sentence structure. He spent more time apart from his sisters. Shifting from the indoors and the X’s full of water. Craving the outdoors where his Y air could breathe.
He started Auskick, bought shoes with bits that stick out the bottom and started practicing poses for when he too would one day be on a collected football card.
As he was out drop punting and marking, the watery X’s fell in close synch with each other. They began finishing each other’s sentences and took to hiding in the back bedroom with the door closed. Where every stereotyped X object in the house created a world of feminine bliss. They started waking each other earlier to play before school. Mates all dropped off as they both hurried home to retreat to their back bedroom each night. All the while, my wingman continued to hang outside alone, kicking his ball and self commentating on his game.
But then Auskick finished. With a fanfare of pizza and medals, the thing that held my wingman’s focus – fell away. He started coming back inside. Began knocking at the back bedroom door. Where his sisters, in all their frilly, dolly glory, continued to play their creative X games.
They didn’t want him to come in and continually complained to me that their’s was a girl’s game. No room for loud red-haired boys. No place for oblong shaped balls. No space for the long syllable names and game commentary.. And despite his dressing up, his Tim Tam bribing and his donation of pretty much anything of value in his room – they still shouted at him through a closed door to go away.
This morning, my wingman came in for a Sunday cuddle. He told me he was sad. He told me his sisters again wouldn’t let him play. He told me that he wanted to be a part of their game. He said he missed them. That he was lonely. And that playing ninja turtles by himself actually wasn’t so much fun.
Although he didn’t use those words, a mother knows the way her child feels by simply holding him in her arms.
Because she has him weaved so deep in her heart.
I parked my youngest lad in my bed with a stick of incense and a wad of Charlie and Lola books, and went up to the back bedroom. To talk to my X’s. To stick up for my Y. And to remind them all of a few home truths.
I said to them as Maya Angleou said, “At the end of the day people won’t remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.”
Think lateral side stretching, standing hip openers and partner asana.
Life is full of rhythm and subtle ethical currents. At certain times on our journey, we are more sensitive to these energies and feelings than at other times. This weekend, we come to the end of winter 2015. The season being closed by the magnificence of the Piscean supermoon. It is a time where we are asked to awaken from the deep rest of the darker months. When feelings we’ve been sitting on or hiding away solo are opened to share through our window of perception. We are asked to begin to expand back outwards again from the introspective cocoon of stillness. It can be tricky, scary and hard, particularly with this highly emotive and imaginative full sky of light.
My watery X’s sat shocked that they had the capacity to be remembered for feelings rather than actions. For heart rather than head. They stopped their game, they stared at each other and let me leave them in the back bedroom. With an open door.
After I stepped out of the shower later, I heard them. All of them together. My 3 small folk in my wingman’s bedroom. The airy Y and the watery Xs, blowing bubbles as they jumped on his bed. It was a perfect mix of the physical and the magical, of my boy and my girls. It was what every mother could want for her child under an illuminating moon to close the season of winter.
To remember what it is to be accepted.
Not to be frightened in rejoicing in who you are.
To remember what it is to feel loved.
X