Gateway to Unrepentant Gentleness

 It was the end of some video we were watching - I forget which, but the father was sitting in a big stuffed armchair with a kid tucked in on each side. He was reading:

"The Mole had been working very hard all the morning, spring cleaning his little home. First with brooms, then with dusters; then on ladders and steps and chairs, with a brush and a pail of whitewash; till he had dust in his throat and eyes, and splashes of whitewash all over his black fur, and an aching back and weary arms."

"Ah," I muttered, "I wonder if they'll let him get all the way to "‘Bother!’ and ‘O blow!’ and also ‘Hang spring-cleaning!’"

"What?" responded my better half - possessor of a university degree in English.

"Wind in the Willows," I replied. "I wonder if they will let him get to the 'Hand spring cleaning' bit."

"Don't know. Never heard of it."

We have a joke we share when appropriate in conversation:

"We have been married for almost 60 years" Folks look at us amazed, to which we respond: "Just not to each other!" Reactions vary from laughter to chuckles to "Us too!" depending on the company.

It is true, Christine and I lived very full lives before entering into second marriages. She out in the business world, I ensconced in the ivory tower of academia. And those experiences crafted very different realities, that are most often complimentary. This one, however, stuck with me for a few days. "Never heard of it." Amazing.

Christine chose to not have kids. A decision for which our over-populated planet thanks her, but may have contributed to her tendency to spoil her nieces and grandchildren. Probably no harm there.  I, on the other hand, have two delightful daughters with whom I shared many a night immersed in children's literature. It got me thinking, what was there in those seemingly simple stories that allowed me to recall big chunks of them half a century later? I have come to the conclusion that it has to do with the general notion of gentleness - even more so, a protective, unquestioning acceptance of the value of gentleness. Let me natter on a bit. 

There is something childlike about gentleness - remember that there is a significant difference between childlike and childish. Childlike is actual a rather adult concept that nonetheless has its roots in childhood. That assertion probably needs some clarification.

We often use language that paints an erroneous picture of childhood. Perhaps the most common example is the phrase "sleeping like a baby," to convey the idea of "a deep and peaceful sleep." Anyone who has actually been in the presence of a sleeping baby realizes the fantasy snuggled within this phrase. Babies rarely, if ever, sleep deep and peacefully. When they finally stop fussing and go to sleep [yes, my dear darling, sleep-resistant, daughters, I am talking about you] they wriggle about, toss and turn, need frequent drinks of water, need changing, make weird noises that often defy explanation, and so on. But we continue to say "sleeping like a baby" as if it were a good thing.*

Childhood can actually be a very stressful time for the little humans going through it. Changing realities, roles, expectations, physical and emotional evolutions that present them with the continually changing challenges of "growing up."  And sadly that often includes, as Corinthians 13:11 puts it: "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." And too often one of the things "put away" is gentleness:  Grow up! Act your age! Put on your big boy pants! Don't be a sissy! Take care of business! All those exhortations favored by Trump's bevy of bouncing billionaire bullies.

I'm thinking that I took away from a subset of children's literature an inclination to occasionally withdraw into a childlike, as opposed to childish, state of unrepentant gentleness that blunts the haranguing of contemporary life both as portrayed by the media - online and off - where "if it bleeds it leads" still rings true, or as in the LA area where the current reality surpasses nightmares.

What defines that subset? There may well be contemporary examples but I naturally choose those examples that were prevalent either when I was a child or when I was "the reader" for my children. So here is my list:

Old Mother West Wind Stories by Thornton Burgess. These were published in the 19teens. 1916, 17, 18? Definitely read to me as a child, and maybe some "self read" when I was first learning to read. I include them, not because I can clearly remember them, but because there is something of the air of unrepentant gentleness about them. And they may have drawn inspiration from the grandparent immediately below.

Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.  Published in 1908, but recast in several more contemporary versions. I favor the pre-Disney versions. If you haven't heard of it, go read it.

Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne. Illustrations by E. H. Shepard. First appeared by name in a children's story commissioned by London's Evening News for Christmas Eve 1925, so is the most recent of the trio. Again, redone by the Disney empire. But finding the original version is worth the effort.

So what is there about these works that constitutes what I call Unrepentant Gentleness? Primarily it is either the absence of evil, as in Winnie the Pooh and Mother West Wind, or the thwarting of somewhat muted evil as in Wind in the Willows. They define a safe place in which kindness, caring, and friendship, wrap their loving arms around you. Read them.

Is it a fantasy? Well, most certainly it is a fantasy that any adult recognizes as such. One that crumbles in the face of any extended brush with "reality" as reported in the media or present for any number of reasons in your own life. It is a fantasy and I cannot advise trying to live there. But who among us can say they do not seek an occasional respite from that reality? A glass of something? A taste of now legal weed? An exhausting run or workout? Smashing the ball of your choice, golf, soccer, tennis, pickle?

This is simply another, perhaps more gentle, option.

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* For those of you who may - regularly or occasionally - be currently responsible for getting small humans to sleep, I share a strategy I used with my younger sleep-resistant daughter who actually did sleep in a trundle, albeit one painted to resemble a formula 1 race car. It worked oh, 30 or 40% of the time.

First, find a spot close to, but not shared with, the small human. I lay on the floor next to said trundle. The idea is for you to be able to slide out of the room when small human falls asleep.

Next, you make up a soft tune that fits with this little ditty:

Bundle o'baby

Baby's a bundle

Can't sleep in a big bed

You sleep in a trundle.

Finally you lie down in your spot and softly sing the ditty over and over and over and over again until either you or the small human falls asleep. Either way, mission accomplished.