Lessons from my cousin

I've been spending the weekend with my 13 year old cousin - E. She came to stay with me and my mother who is herself staying the month because of the holiday season. She has this quality of curiosity, innocence and sweetness that is so compelling.

Maybe it is her age, but she strikes me as someone that doesn't question her worthiness to be loved, it is refreshing to spend time with someone as such. Having her around has affected the ambience at home, now the energy at home seems fresher and more dynamic, like a window left open on a spring day. I enjoy interacting with her, she sees the world so differently. There are minimal assumptions on her part, and she catches humor and irony in many situations that adults tend to overlook. I suppose in that way she reminds me of The Little Prince. For example, when the 3 of us were sitting at a restaurant and 3 servers came to serve me my beer that I had ordered, she remarked how absurd it was. "One to hold the bottle opener, one to hold the beer and one to speak", she laughed. The novelty of the situation had escaped me entirely, perhaps I was too preoccupied with crafting an intelligent and refined manner. And when she laughs, it is unrestrained and infectious without any undertones nor is there any no pause whatsoever to assess the appropriateness of it.

E is incredibly gifted in music. She is a prodigy in that sense if I ever met one. In fact I have admired all my cousins on my mother's side for their talent for music, it seems they picked it up overnight and I have been envious of their magical creative expressions. It is SO nourishing for the spirit to do so. To me, musicians are also magicians for ability to change the composure of a space magically and instantly. I can imagine that doing so is like methamphetamine for the soul, it's almost unfair to everyone else seeking that sort of contentment. Yet, E stands out from my talented cousins - she learned the organ a few years ago and had performed on TV.

And then a month ago, she picked up the guitar and taught herself how to play it. She gave us a performance of some Taylor Swift and Xmas carols, but what really moved me was a song that she had composed herself. I could only listen and bask in the purity of her creation, her voice doused out the din of the rest of the world.

Yesterday we stopped at 7-11 on the way to the tennis court. She carried her guitar so she could practice her songs while I practiced some tennis serves. As we stood at the cash register, I encouraged her to perform her song in front of the two service clerks. Initially shy and reluctant, but then as she strummed the guitar, a connection instantly occurred between us - I felt precisely the same smile of gratitude, joy and wonder that was written on their faces. It was a sort of miracle. And later as I practiced my tennis serves, I felt so proud of her for I knew that her song was being carried to the open windows of the tenants surrounding the tennis court.

I took her to a Karaoke at the mall because she had never been to one. We had a grand time singing our hearts out to all kinds of songs. Then as we walked home through the mall she grabbed my hand so we could walk hand-in-hand, my immediate reaction was how this might be misperceived and I found myself looking for an innocuous moment to slip my hand out of her grasp. Then I came to my senses over how foolish I was being, this was my typical reaction whenever any sort of girl held my hand and yet here was my own dear cousin. I realized that the time was not far off when my cousin would no longer reach for my hand, once she had 'grown up'. So I held her hand with gratitude and felt loved as we walked home.

I had an opportunity to have an uninterrupted conversation with her after a swim one Saturday morning. As we sat on the deck chairs under an umbrella, I took the chance to speak some words of wisdom hoping to imbue a sense of responsibility and heightened consciousness in her. Things I had learned from books, life and that I wish I had been told when I was her age. I think the only things that she really got from me was: "just because everyone thinks something, it doesn't make it true", and she could readily understand my lengthy discourse on how important it was for us to live in harmony with nature. She listened without interruption, with undivided attention. I wondered if I was perhaps marring her innocence with the heaviness of the topics I was sharing and so I stopped after awhile. I suddenly felt old... and for the first time it occurred to me that my cousin could have been my daughter. I was actually that much older than her, funny... it had never dawned on me before.

Now that she's left, I've realized that my 13 year old cousin imparted me more knowledge about living than I did to her about life. And it was all just from her BEING - simple invaluable lessons in how to brighten ones path. Live freely, play/create/listen to music as much as you can, laugh without restraint, be fearless, love and do not doubt that you are loved always.

Her song...