Either/Or

All the Way Here

You are on the swing.
Up you go. Down you go.
The wind is in your hair.

But wait.
Are you thinking about the slide?
Are you wishing it was snack time?
Then you are not really swinging.
Part of you is somewhere else.

Say it with me:
Be all the way here.

When you play, really play.
Feel the ball in your hands.
Hear your friends laugh.
This is happening right now.
You only get it once.

Say it again:
Be all the way here.

Sometimes your mind runs off.
It runs to later. It runs to before.
That is okay. Minds do that.
Just call it back, soft and kind.
Come back. We are here now.

When you eat the cookie, taste the cookie.
When you hug, hug all the way.
When you look at the moon, just look.

Be all the way here.

A note for the grown-up

For the grown-up reading aloud: This small idea comes from a big, hard book, Søren Kierkegaard’s Either/Or (1843). In one essay the young aesthete describes the unhappiest person as someone who is never present to himself, always living ahead in hope or back in memory. That much is bedrock. The book’s larger argument, that you must commit to one whole way of living, plus its religious ending, is contested and is not what this primer teaches. When your child’s mind wanders, you don’t need to fix it, and you don’t need to promise that being present always feels good; sometimes here holds a hard feeling, and that’s allowed. Gently coming back is the whole practice.

Pick One and Play

The bell rings. It is playtime!
There are the swings.
There is the sandbox.
Which one will you pick?

You stand and think.
Swings are fun.
But the sandbox is fun too.
You think some more.

Say it with me:
Pick one. Then play.

While you think, time keeps going.
Your friends are already swinging.
Your friends are already digging.
And you are still standing.

Ding, ding! The bell rings again.
Playtime is over.
You did not swing.
You did not dig.
Not picking was a pick after all.

Pick one. Then play.

It is fine to think a little.
Then choose, and go.

What if you pick swings,
and wish you had picked sand?
That’s okay. Now you know.
Tomorrow you can pick sand.

Tomorrow the bell rings.
You look. You think. You choose.
Off you run!

Pick one. Then play.

A note for the grown-up

For the grown-up reading aloud: This comes from the second half of Kierkegaard’s Either/Or (1843), where a judge writes to a young man who never commits. His image is a ship’s captain weighing which way to turn while the ship keeps moving: wait too long and the choice is made for you. The judge’s larger claims, that life is one great either/or and that the ethical life beats the aesthetic, are contested, and the book itself refuses to say who wins. The primer teaches only the small part that holds: standing still is also a choice. The fence is the other side of it. Thinking first is good, and a choice that turns out wrong is something a child learns from, not a disaster.