Love In The Wild

My youngest son is a high-spirited child.

Of course, that is the nice, gentle way to say that, really, he is wild.

Wild. In every sense of the word, exactly as it's defined in the dictionary.

wild: wld/ adjective
1.(of an animal or plant) living or growing in the natural environment; not domesticated or cultivated.
2. uncontrolled or unrestrained, especially in pursuit of pleasure.

My son Gabriel is all of those things: uncontrolled, unrestrained, uncultivated.

And I am, not unrelated, always tired.

My son's 'natural environment' was the end of my first marriage. He was the last child born of two weary parents, who were trying to piece together the last vestiges of a family, when underneath our entire world was dissolving. My Gabriel roamed about in our bed, between that ex-husband and I. And I gladly welcomed him in, partially because he was my last baby. And also because with him there, between us, it made the space between his father and I, wider.

So my son became used to always being there, in the warm shadow of my body, nursing on demand like a lion cub, searching for my breast with his eyes closed anytime he was hungry or needed comfort. And as the weeks and months passed, I noticed things.

The way he was never satisfied, the way he balled up his fists faster than my older children had, when he had to wait to eat or be held. And there was hardly ever an end to his hunger; he never, ever seemed satisfied. About anything. And while I wanted to give him the opportunity to comfort himself, to learn how to self soothe, I was tired. I had other children and a dying marriage to shoulder---sometimes it was just easier to pick up that wild child and calm him, just to quiet the noise. Just to give myself some peace.

So I began to blame myself for the wildness. Because I held on too long, for all the reasons a mother holds on to the last baby---the grieving, the ending, the relishing. And because he was caught in the space between a husband and wife who did not know when to let go of one another. So instead of sorting it out, we lay in the stillness of the night, the last child we made together sweating and sleeping between us.

But that marriage finally dissolved. And as the years passed, the wildness just grew along with my son.

He was handsome and strong, sweet and kind. He loved his family and his world. But he could not comprehend words like gentle or moderation.

He was a mess, always trailing behind. I found myself repeating the same phrases to him like a broken record. You can't jump on the couch. You have to sit down when you're eating. Shut the door, shut the door! Where are your boots, why are your socks wet? And on, and on. Until my voice was hoarse and my furniture was worn and my head was aching.

At first I thought the pasture of his roaming, the space of his wildness was limited to our small world: house, yard, the little cul-de-sac where my children zoomed in circles on their hand me down bikes. Until he went to school and the notes came home "From The Teacher's Desk".

He's very kind, he just had such a hard time sitting still today. Later that same week, another note. Gabriel is such a sweet boy, he just struggles with keeping his hands to himself at times. Looking up from this note, I could see my son, that sweet boy, wolfing down his fourth stick of string cheese and rolling around like a river otter, in the middle of the family room floor.

"Oh, Gabriel." I sighed, into his sticky neck. "You have to stay in your seat in class. You can't touch everything, everyone. You have to look with your eyes, son--not with your hands."

He wrapped his arms around my neck and cooed warm breath into my ear. "I will, I know. I try." And then, as he climbed into my lap, which, at seven, was almost too small for him now: "There are so many things to remember not to do."

Sometimes it was nearly impossible to convince him to go to school at all. What do you do all day, mama? I wonder about you, he asked me in the morning, as we waited for the bus. His line of questioning began to worry me. I feared I might turn around from the sink one morning to find him standing there in the kitchen, having escaped from school liked a clever monkey who had broken from his cage. Day after day that passed when he didn't arrive, I breathed out in relief.

Worry, relief, worry, relief---the cycle of love in the wild.

At night, Gabriel always asked to be tucked in last. It was a tight squeeze, but I would come and lay in his bed for a little while. To compensate for having to sleep alone now, for being kicked out of my bed, he had filled his own nest with all the things that were important in his world. There were eleven stuffed animals of different sizes, finished sticker books and an art project from school. A blanket his sister had cast off. A box of Legos. I wedged up against him in the bed, felt him slip his body up beside me, in that old familiar release.

Wildness grows in the thickets of time, as my last boy climbed up and out of my bed and into his own little nest. I have tried to tame him, because there is something to be said for fitting in, for knowing your place and settling down in it. Isn't that what a mother---beast or woman--is supposed to do for her child? To temper his unruliness--- to guide even the most foolhardy, the most rash of little beasts, so that they will come to safely rest--down here, with the rest of us? With those of us who do, what the world expects us to do.

But here is the secret that I am not supposed to say out loud.

I admire his freedom.

His wildness makes him vulnerable and it opens him up to a big world; he loves with the ferocity of a creature who has jumped bravely from the rafters and landed solid in the dirt.

He, who is soothed in the smells of what is familiar. He, who seems not to care that he beats on alone, to a very different drum.

My son is small still. There is time left, and even though it's difficult, even though I am exhausted---we're taking our time.

There is time still, to banish the wildness from the boy.

There is time still, too. To let him roam in it a little longer, before the wildness disappears from the boy, for good.

This essay originally appeared on Nicole's blog at www.momof4istired.com .