Aye En!

I could encapsulate all the differences between my two kids by their early attitudes towards books.  One, if he could speak at 9 months, would have said, “These treasures open up fascinating new worlds to me.  Now that I don’t teeter over anymore, go about your business, mother dear, while I respectfully handle these precious objects whilst gazing upon them for hours.”  The other would say something more like, “Yeeeee-ha!  AVALANCHE!”  His actions quickly introduced me to the caustic glare of the librarian, who for some reason no longer held me in high esteem.

It was the second kid who later coined the term used as the title of this post.  Forget about the story and the pictures; the best part came when the final page was turned and he could yell out, “Aye En!” His brother and I had to sneak off for secret book readings where the words “Just wait!  Not yet!” weren’t appended to every third sentence.

Aye en’s enthusiasm for the predictability of endings came from someplace other than my psyche.  I tend to dread them, preferring the unknowns carefully placed safely within the pages of a book, rather than those uncovered when the volume is closed. 

At one time, my gardening seasons came to an end in November.  Here on the farm, final harvests around Thanksgiving made way for the sheep to enter my haven and graze on some new delights, followed by a good tilling from the pigs.  As I watched one annual gate opening in which the sheep were led into the garden, older and wiser Aye En stroked my arm and asked as we looked into the drizzly grayness from the porch, “This is a hard day for you, isn’t it?”

 Now, though, I have too much in the way of perennials, and too little in the way of time, to build cross fencing which would allow the animals to move about in sections.  So, now, the garden is off limits to them.  I kinda like it that way.

But sometimes I wonder.

The stirring up by the pigs, following some of the best fertilizer that I don’t have to scoop up and tow in myself is a good thing.  Endings are a part of living in a dynamic cycle.  Yesterday I ran into a friend who does his own version of stirring and digging as he thinks about life experiences.  He posed the question that if challenge brings us to a place where we learn and grow, expanding our understanding of this experience called life, encountering new thoughts and ideas that broaden us, why do so many want to avoid it, staying sheltered in what’s safe?

Good question, I thought.  Change is hard, there’s no denying that.  But avoiding change, when it presents itself as part of the natural rhythm, is stepping away from living.  For some, like me, predictability is important, but I have to also remember that like the storybooks which take us safely to “Aye En!” predictability isn’t the same as reality.