Fusion confusion

I am still struck by the poignancy of my dad’s late in life wondering about where he belonged, where he fitted in — maybe if he fitted in, even. I have felt this throughout my life too and, were it not for the nonplussed confusion on my mum’s face, I could easily have assumed it was a universal, experienced by everyone. That would make good sense to me. But clearly, for my mum at least, it never felt like that. I wonder if it’s because she was an identical twin? That must give you a feeling of belonging like no other. Perhaps I’ll ask her next time I visit and we can have another deep conversation.

Back home now I’m reading a book about a child genius called “The Boy Who Played With Fusion”. I came across it at random in the local library and it fitted with my desire to read more books that are not about yoga 🙂 It is a fascinating read, not so much for its detail about nuclear physics, but for the very human story of a child growing up feeling different; to what extent parents choose to meet a child’s needs, the importance of schooling that caters to children as individuals, the luck of having that one teacher who inspires and challenges, the dangers of prodigious intelligence that isn’t channelled into something construction (as it can so easily turn destructive).

Much of it parallels experiences (albeit on a very different scale!) of my own childhood and reminds me of the ways I felt I didn’t quite fit in. I was interested in different things to my peers, I frequently got into trouble contradicting my teachers when they were wrong, how frustratingly limited I found the local library and the weird inter library loan requests I used to make, the degree to which my parents did (or didn’t) put time and money into furthering my interests, and how the school mostly just gave me boring and repetitive ‘busy work’ to occupy me while the rest of the class laboured through something I already knew or had previously mastered by teaching it to myself. My mum and I were chuckling recently as we recalled how absorbed I used to be in my childhood interests. She would come and tap on my bedroom door in the evening hours after we’d finished dinner and come in to see what I was up to “Will you finish up soon and come and watch TV with us?” she used to ask plaintively, full of love and longing for my company, while I was totally happy with my own preoccupations and projects!

Maybe I really am precocious because I’m only about half my dad’s age and I think I have already thought for a long time about fitting in and belonging 🙂 Now that I’m in middle age (argh, can’t believe I wrote that! Well, my birthday is coming up so age is on my mind!) So …. now that I’m in middle age — or perhaps as a result of all the yoga work and self-reflection — I am increasingly aware of the ways I am different and the ways I am just the same as the other people around me. I am both those things of course, and happily so. And I’m getting more able to reflect back on my childhood experiences and view them more dispassionately and see my younger self more compassionately. I did my best and my parents did their best.

Perhaps I did feel lost for much of my life but oftentimes I now see I had a guide or a teacher or an influence or a preoccupation that led me in one direction or another. Some of these things were extreme and perhaps destructive even, some were sweet and rather beautiful. Tears and smiles cross my face as I write this and look back at the serendipities, chances taken and those missed, the paths I didn’t take and the ones I got lost on, things I deeply regret and yet can also see some positive outcomes… And all this is still happening of course.

So I guess that’s how life is. We wander, we might feel lost at times or we are called on in some direction by forces we don’t understand… Yes, that’s how life is. There’s a beauty in the bewildering mess of it. That’s being human.

Perhaps I’ll explain it to my dad sometime.