Well-worn ruts

Dan's BackYard: Sun Mosaic

May 2005 Chapel Thrill, NC

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The Sun Mosaic here is set into steel plates and leads into a central area with stone "seats" and a stone "table". Around the edges of the mosaic are other stone "seats". The whole area gave me the feeling of a small performance area. Not quite a stage, but great place to share music or to have a poetry or prose reading some cool summer evening.

Set into the sun's ray that's most predominant in this image is a snake. The image of the snake appears in several places in Dan's Back Yard -- don't worry, we'll get to them soon enough.

So, today's update on The Boy centers on repeating old patterns. The Boy has a bad habit of getting into mental ruts, obsessing over certain thoughts until he can't find his way out of them. [deletes specific example and moves on to more general topics] He'll make a decision, often an uninformed decision with some long-term ramifications, and things will not work out as magically as he expected them to, for whatever reason. Instead of learning from the experience and moving on, he settles into a lengthy bout of obsessing over the problems, not making any steps to resolve them or change the situation.

He will discuss the failure with friends, who will agree with him, until they can't stand to hear about it any more. Then he'll turn to either Bonn or Seren and talk to them about it. At first they'll be sympathetic as well. Eventually, though, they'll give him The Cold, Hard Slap in the Face of Reality that family and true friends are really there for.

He'll argue, get angry and storm off by himself to brood over it. As angry as he gets, though, he goes to them because he knows he's going to get Honesty from them, something he may not be finding amongst his limited group of younger friends.

Such "discussions" have taken place over the past two or three days between The Boy and Bonn. She's delivered TCHSinFoR several times, with the expected results. (Well, expected by me. She still feels bad every time she has to do it, but, of course, she knows how necessary it is to do) Today's discussion was particularly pointed, but it has at least spurred him towards some semblance of motivation, something he's sorely lacked since moving back over the weekend.

I'm looking into getting him "Meditation for Dummies". I'm reading it right now and think all three of us could benefit from meditating. I have no idea if he'll actually read it, but as a parent we can only do what we can do for our kids.

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