Go have kids. Right now. Go.

Last week's post had an unexpected response.  People seemed to believe I was anti-kids!  Or somehow they felt that because my kids "ruined" my career, I needed to be reassured that kids are worth it and that I didn't make a mistake.

Let me be clear: the single best four things I have ever done in my entire life are named Elijah, Isadora, Emerald and Amethyst.

There is no contest.  There is no question.  There is no doubt.

Okay there might occasionally be doubt.  Like Sunday afternoons when all the kids are cranky and whining, and fighting and crying and did I mention cranky?  Ugh.  As a parent, there are beautiful, perfect days, and there are horrible, hard days where you want to cry in your soup, big messy, unattractive tears.

Why do I love them?  Why is having children the best thing I ever did?  Why will I recommend it to absolutely every person I ever meet?  Explaining the reason children are so wonderful, so vital, so beautiful seems like a monumentally difficult task to me.  How can you reduce it to words?  I am going to try.  Please don't mock me when I fail.  It feels like trying to describe what "salty" tastes like without using the word salt, but here goes nothing.

I went to Italy last fall.  It is a beautiful country.  I'm an uncultured swine who knew next to nothing about art and who breezed through the Louvre in Paris (both times) in little more than a half day.  It's kind of embarrassing, but there it is.  When I went to France years ago, all the paintings sort of looked the same.  Before we went to Florence, I bought some books and read up on some of the paintings in an attempt to be one tiny notch above completely clueless.

I am not sure whether it worked.  I recognized some of the paintings and sculptures, but I certainly didn't fathom their majesty.  If I'm being honest, some of them freaked me the crap out.  (I am sorry but the paintings of Jesus as a baby breastfeeding, or even worse, just holding Mary's boob are strange.)  Also, the ones where key religious figures look like emaciated corpses, and the beautiful, incomparable works of some of the masters, depicting everyone naked?  I can't help it, my eye goes right to the bits we cover up in everyday society.  I am not classy.  Sorry!

Which leads me to my point.  The David.

Right about now, you are thinking, crap, Bridget, I am so embarrassed for you.  This post was supposed to be about kids, you moron.  (Maybe I got confused and mixed up my posts!)

I have a point, I really do.  Thank you for bearing with me.  

I knew nothing about how the David was housed prior to my arrival in Florence.  I bought a book, though, and read all about it the night before.  I read about how some of Michelangelo's unfinished works (the slaves) lined the walkway up to the main room where the David is housed.  I had seen photos, so many many photos.  I had seen drawings.  I knew what to expect.  I even saw a reconstruction someone made in the square--so theoretically, I had basically seen the David before I walked into that room at the Accademia.

None of it prepared me at all for seeing the David in real life.

It is vast, so so so vast.  It is beautiful.  It has gorgeous lines, majesty and nobility.  I know that I am utterly incapable of doing it justice with anything my untrained fingers might type, so I will stop there.  Any art scholar is laughing at me.  Unless they've seen it, and then I will hazard a guess that they know exactly how I feel.  

You walk past the "slaves" on your way to the David.  They are basically big chunks of stone.  Sections of them are completely unformed.  They are blank and you can imagine when anything could have been carved from them.  You can see that on some, Michelangelo began with the head and worked down.   On others, he started with an arm, or a leg, carving out the main shape, and then coming back to finish details.  I am going to toss in a few photos I took (I am not a photographer, so don't judge these photos, but I felt moved to try.)

Here is the walkway, a few chunks of stone in.  Pardon Whit's silly pose, but you can see the David (really tiny) behind him. In this first slave, you can see that the head is completely unformed.  But the leg and most of the body are rough hewn.

Similar here, you can see the slave emerging from the rock.  The back side is completely untouched.

 This guy has a leg, an arm, and his stomach.  The rest is not shaped yet.

 And now, here are the photos you have been waiting for!! My exceedingly amateurish efforts to capture what I felt when I saw this work of art.  It was so far above my head, both figuratively and literally, that I can't express what I felt.

 But you can see in this the detail, of the sling over his back, of the veins in his hand.  The hairs on his head.  This was lovingly depicted in every way.

This, my friends, this experience I had at the Accademia, this is what having children is like, it is a walk down the hall from the unformed blocks of stone to the awe inspiring, indescribable masterpiece that no one can fully understand.  Only, instead of walking, we are preparing them, we are carving them, shaping them, helping them emerge from the stone that is surrounding them.  They are born as these little smooshy lumps that cry and can't do anything.  They require constant care, and slowly, but surely, they grow, they emerge, they develop.  

Our children are just like those vast blocks of stone, but every single one of my children is becoming something more beautiful, more indescribable than the David.  Part of this, bear with me, is going to feel religious, or spiritual, but I think that's inextricably linked for me, with being a parent.  Being a parent is what makes me understand God just a little more.  We are His children and He loves us (I believe) and I can comprehend that a little more after having my own.  We have the task of helping them emerge from that block of rock to become the masterpiece God intended.  

Being a parent is a front row seat to a miracle.    

My little angels ask me things every single day that leave me to marvel.  They grow up in leaps and spurts, staying the same for days, lulling me into a false sense of safety, that they might be mine forever.  And then I turn around and they've grown a year in the space of one day.  It breaks my heart and at the same time fills it to bursting.  To see them becoming that perfect creation I know is inside, and to watch them moving to where they will no longer need me is the juxtaposition of all that I love and all that I fear.  Joy and sorrow and a sense of wonder I cannot describe.  

Let me be crystal clear on this:  I still believe a child will wreck everything in your life.  My grandfather always said, "You can have nice things, or you can have a kid.  You can't have both."  He is correct.  They will wreck your body during pregnancy and after.  They will wreck your checking account, your schedule, your career and in short, your entire life.  And you will be so sick and tired of the whining, the crying and the frustration you will want to scream.  No scratch that, you will scream.  

Because carving stone is hard work, and it's messy.  

Just as my photos, my book, my study did not prepare me for seeing the David, nothing you do, no blogs you read, no advice you receive will prepare you for becoming a parent.  Some days you will want to quit.  You will want to throw away those carving tools, and throw away the industrial sized broom and dustpan you need to clean up the mess and walk away and never come back.  But then, oh then, you will return.  You will never give up because you know that eventually, on one terrifying, miracle filled day, you can stand back and see what you had a hand in creating.  You will never, ever, ever be the same, and you will not regret the time, the pain, the difficulty and the horror of the carving.  You will only ever regret missing out, or not being there to see it happen and to lend a hand.