Jumbled Expectations = Joy
Among the Sequoia, photo by author
Our son Joe was tiny, under three, when he became engrossed in cracks in the tarmac. He called them “Woad Pwoblems.” Our hilly, windy little road in northeastern Minnesota suffered frost heaves, plowing, roots, heavy equipment, and snowmelt. The edges were forever crumbling. If he wasn’t loaded in the wagon before we reached the end of our gravel driveway, our walks could be very slow as he bent down to examine each problem. I thought maybe he’d become an engineer.
“Expectations are premeditated resentments” is an adage I’ve found very helpful. And what is a bundle of baby to whom we introduce ourselves as mommy and daddy, but a minefield of expectations? Expectations for the child, for ourselves, and for our partners. On my gratitude list: that I found the caution against expectations when my children were still pretty young. Of course, we expect our kids to be kind, to do their schoolwork, and to do family chores—the basics of social life. And some higher expectations may be good inspiration and resilience training for them. But when my love gets tangled up, constricted by anger, disappointment, or fear, then is the time to re-assess--what is causing my distress. Is it the child’s behavior or my own blindness? Is it the partner’s lack of child rearing skills or my judgement? Am I aiming for Mom of the Year or Human of the Day?
When Joe was in 9th Grade, he told me he was going to get a C in his English class. This kid had befriended the local bookseller. Ten feet of shelves provided privacy for his loft bedroom. Those shelves had double rows of books on them. Things he’d written wowed his teachers. His vocabulary was larger than mine. A C in English? Absolutely unacceptable. What about his Grade Point Average? He’d need a high GPA to win scholarships for college.
He scoffed at my argument. “Graduation GPAs only include the sophomore through senior years. This year’s grades don’t matter”
“WHAT?”
He refused to do anything to bring up his grade. I was livid. That C was on my mind a lot.
Then one day I was talking to a woman who said her son had run away. He was just a little older than Joe. The mother didn’t know where her son was; didn’t even know if he was alive. Suddenly a C in English seemed a pretty small problem. Certainly not worth the relationship budget I squandered on it.
Within joy there is an element of surprise, the opposite of expectations. Recall your most vivid joyful moment. Put yourself there. Are you warm, cold, in pajamas, snowsuit, or birthday suit? Is there a smell in the air—cinnamon, horse manure, cedar? Any sound—birdsong or a ticking clock or someone’s voice? How does joy feel in your body? Does it radiate out from your gut or pour in through the top of your head or rise from the ground through your feet? Unless you are that rare person who finds joy in every moment, something has jostled you out of your usual experiences: a loved one surprises you; a ray of moonlight pierces sorrow with beauty; on your knees beside a child on a shoreline, he shows you a pile of broken clam shells and names it the Otter Restaurant.
Joy jumbles expectations, jostles order, jumps over walls. As parents we expect our children to bring us joy. Because it’s expected, we can too easily resent those moments of joy’s absence rather than celebrating its presence. And at the bottom of all our dreams for them, we want them to find joy, too. But we believe there’s a prescription for success which we tend to equate with happiness. Get the right education and the right job, find the right partner, have the right number of children, the right house, the right amount of money and fame, practice the correct religion. Do the things we did or wish we had done. Fulfill our dreams, avoid our fears.
When Joe told me what his salary would be as a professor, it was half again what either his dad or I ever made. And yet, my first reaction was, “Oh, that’s not a lot of money.” He’d persisted and completed a doctorate degree in math for Pete’s sake. My expectation was that he’d make a lot more money. I apologized later. That he found a position at all in the tight job market of the time was a relief. That it was a small college within an hour’s drive of Yosemite and on its campus was a labyrinth of bouldering ‘problems’ (a climbing term for routes up rock faces) was a joy for my rock-climbing son and Leigh, his wife (they met at a climbing gym).
Small statues and rocks on the windowsill above my writing desk represent loved ones. A chunk of amethyst crystals embedded in an igneous rock matrix reminds me of Joe. We collected it on a family trip to Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. Rocks are my son’s element and the profusion of facets on the deep purple crystals mimic an image on my wall. As a Christmas present, Joe framed a portion of his doctoral thesis, fractals in shades and hues of browns and blues with pops of mauve and purple within the repeating rings. When Joe explains mathematics to me, I feel new synapses forming within my brain. He generates images and connections. I feel as if I understand. Later I find my ‘understanding’ was the teensy tiniest little fractal on a neuron, which is, in turn, like a little-used forest road becoming subsumed by surrounding forest and bog. In other words, not accessible unless he leads me back there. What does stick with me is a sense of awe and joy. Something I didn’t expect to find in mathematics.
When I lay down my expectations and embrace what is, joy jumps up and joggles my jugular. I didn’t expect my son, Joe’s avocation to be teaching. Probably most often, I pictured him as a biologist, unlocking the secrets of some wild, windswept place. I realize now, that would have been a loss for the people who are no longer afraid of numbers, maybe even relish them, thanks to him. He is a natural, inspiring professor who serves as advisor to such disparate groups as the Outdoor Club and the Dungeons and Dragons Club. Forced to teach remotely during COVID, he misses interaction with his students and does what he can to help them over remote-learning barriers.
When I’m with Joe, it’s not just my brain that gets stretched. He and Leigh, his wife, take me rock climbing and bouldering. Even tame situations like hikes or bike rides often jumble my expectations about myself. Traveling from Minnesota to Montana or California, I move from just above sea level to the mountains. If it’s within the first day or two of my arrival, I can blame breathlessness and fatigue on the altitude. Weakness in my hands and limbs sometimes force me to admit to lack of exercise and to age. Also, cowardice. But I en-Joy the stretches, especially when I can do something outside my own expectations.
Once we hiked in the Big Trees California State Park. The trail was easy and we didn’t go any great distance. There the stretch was all about perspective, walking among such gigantic and ancient Beings. How tiny, how short lived, how restless and grasping we must seem to the Giant Sequoia. These enormous trees shed patience and generosity. Compared to them in size, we aren’t even as big as the little red squirrels who scamper up and down white pines here in northern Minnesota. Our lifespans are much closer to dragonflies (six months) than Giant Sequoias (up to 3300 years). Green light falling through the grand cathedral of branches so far above us created a happy hush in all the human wanderers.
We didn’t talk about climate change. Later I did some research. Like an invasive fungus, in the time since European Americans invaded their range, stands of Giant Sequoias tumbled to demands for lumber and cleared land. Those few who are left, who balance their great needs against their great contributions to soil and water, are like a rock-climber perched on a tiny ledge of rock. The Climate Crisis caused by burning of fossil fuels is throwing soil moisture equations out of whack. Our suppression of fire and general ignorance of their whole ecology hasn’t helped. The roots of the giants range deeply and widely enough to sustain them, but their progeny, their future, aren’t doing well.
We humans are balanced on the Climate Crisis ledge, too. Many (not all) of us Boomers have thrived in this tiny little slice of time, where the consequences for burning fossil fuels seemed to vanish into thin air. We feel secure perched on our little ledge—depending on fossil fuels to sustain our way of life. But some of us have already felt our feet slipping—a mega storm, a fire, a drought, fear of climate refugees. Our progeny won’t escape much greater consequences. I’m grateful for scientists and engineers--educated by math teachers--who are alerting us to the issues and looking for solutions.
What if we loosened our death grip on wealth and status, and stretched in a new direction? Joe and Leigh have shown me that to climb a rock face, you might have to move sideways to find your next move up. Sometimes you have to get crazy and kick your foot up almost level with your head to hook your heel over a new ledge. The Green New Deal and other climate crisis response options look like insurmountable rock walls, but young people see routes that might give them a future on this dear Earth.
Holding my kids as newborns, my imagination couldn’t begin to encompass who they are now, as young adults. We can’t know what a child will pick up, what put down, what break and discard or break and improve, what they might uncover or dream into being. Joe and Leigh are EMTs on a Search and Rescue Squad, saving lives, finding missing people. Joe installed solar panels on their roof, plants gardens, used a 3D printer to make ear savers for nurses’ masks, and inspires students.
If we celebrate the surprises of Joy instead of clinging to our expectations, maybe we’ll find willingness to stretch in new ways, too. I’m joyful Joe is in our world and in my life. I’d better keep up yoga and exercise and dabbling with brain stretchers because someday soon, I hope Joe positions a crash pad beneath a boulder problem and says, “Try this one, Mom.”
My Love With Roots Blog is an abecedary celebration of love with either actual or emotional roots. My “J” list includes: Joe, Joy, juniper horizontalis and Juniper and Joel(joyful friends), Jerry (my kids’ grandpa), and all those verbs that shake up expectations: jostle, jumble, jiggle, and junk.
