Yoga, Climate Change, a Toothbrush, and Running Late for the School Run

how my agonizingly unhurried 8yo opened a zen window in my mind

The pre-school run mantra: get dressed, clean your teeth, brush your hair, get your shoes on, where’s your drink bottle? It’s embedded in the frontal lobes of all parents.

Repeated across the globe every morning by millions, then repeated again and again in each house, each morning. And we get them to school.

sleep, eat, it’s cold, you MUST wear a jumper today, repeat

I have two children. A 10-year-old girl and an 8-year-old boy. I co-parent. Five days out of ten each fortnight it’s my responsibility to get them to school.

In the morning they are yin and yang. My daughter’s yang, my boy is all about the yin.

She wants to get a good seat in her classroom. Sit with her friends.

So in the morning, she has a list that gets ticked off. Twenty minutes before she knows we are due to leave, she’s walking through the house turning off lights, shutting doors, ready for departure.

I turn the bathroom light back on and beg, desperately beg, my son to clean his teeth.

He nods and smiles at me, then turns to the mirror, his toothbrush in his hand, nowhere near his mouth.

I’m edgy.

The 10-year-old can make my next ten minutes a misery. For her, I’m what her brother is to me. Slow. Really slow.

I instruct my boy to clean his teeth. The toothbrush moves vaguely towards his mouth. I fill with hope. Instead of cleaning his teeth, however, he starts to talk.

‘Breathe in, breathe out.’

Staring at the mirror.

‘Breathe in, breathe out.’

He’s channeling his yoga from school. My boy loved his free introductory yoga class in the holidays so much, he convinced his teacher to include six weeks of yoga for his class.

A woman comes and takes the Year 3s through their yoga paces.

He loves yoga. Of course. It’s slow and measured, like him. It imagines outcomes the rest of us can’t. Like him.

My boy hears the urgency in others’ voices and responds by stopping.

We are running late for drop off. I need him to clean his teeth now. Because I know getting him from the front door to the car will be its own challenge.

‘Please clean your teeth, mate. We have to go.’

I’m trying to keep my voice level, not give him a whiff of my twitchiness. But I’ve lost the power struggle anyway.

‘Breathe in…’

If he says it again, I might throttle him. My voice rises, in pitch and volume.

‘Come on. Hurry up!’

My son, I say to myself, makes ‘glacial’ seem fast. And as I say it in my head, I realize that ‘glacial’ needs to be re-defined. With global warming and climate change affecting the planet more and more, the speed of glacial melting is on a J-curve to hell. Glacial is fast. Now.

‘…breathe out.’

I can’t believe he is still standing there, not even close to applying the toothbrush to his teeth, repeating the phrase, over and over. He smiles at me.

And then the world shifts. I listen to him. And see a different way.

He’s not purposefully driving me insane, he’s giving me advice. 8-year-old yoga-loving boy advice.

‘Dad, you are stressed, but it doesn’t matter. Time is relative. My sister, your daughter, will find joy wherever she sits, that is her nature. I will clean my teeth, but not yet. We will get to school on time, we always do. I will stop to look at a slug on the way to the car because I love nature and am a fierce warrior for the planet already. This moment is available for access from more than just anger and frustration. Listen: breathe in…breathe out. Regain your calm. See what is important.’

I take a deep breath and say ‘breathe in…breathe out’. I exhale.

My boy laughs and brushes his teeth.