In Tibet, Buddhist monks make beautiful mandalas out of sand. They spend hours, even days, crafting these complex, geometric designs . . . only to wipe them clean and start over as soon as they’re finished.
Isn’t that a way we might see all the work we do as parents? You clean, then the house is dirty. You do the dishes, then five minutes later the sink is full again. Literally before you’ve even finished helping your kids put their toys away, the toys are splayed out across the floor. Those new clothes you just bought them? Now they’re filthy and frayed.
This can drive you nuts if you let it. It can piss you off. Or you can learn to love it. You can learn to see it all like the mandala—an unending, ephemeral process that we begin again and again and again. You can learn to see it not as work we’re doing but as art. Finish? To be finished would mean the end of this—the end of their childhood, the end of our lives together.
No, we like that it’s a little bit like Groundhog Day. We love that it means a chance to wake up and do this with them again.
To do it beautifully. To do it well. To do it together.