The Oxen is Slow...

One of my favorite movies from my teen years was High Road to China starring Tom Selleck and Bess Armstrong. I fell deeply in lust with Bess when she wore a bikini in The Four Seasons, and I’ve been waiting ever since for her to be so bold again. She was frustratingly clad in High Road to China, but I loved her just the same.

The point? Oh yeah. There was an ancient Chinaman who gave some advice to the intrepid heroes of this yarn: The oxen is slow, but the earth is patient. At the time I laughed at the inanity of the statement, and have used it in conversation where advice is needed and I have none to offer.

Him: My girlfriend dumped for some other guy.
Me: The oxen is slow, but the earth is patient.
Him: Huh?
Me: Exactly.

Maybe listening to NPR has broadened my horizons--*tongue in cheek*--but in the last couple days that phrase has been on my mind. For years a thread has been spinning in my head, trying to make sense of it. Perhaps I always knew.

Last weekend we took Jackson’s top bunk out of his room and put it in Emmett’s, replacing the crib which has been officially retired. Emmett has been sleeping in our bed for almost a year now. Believe me, this is the absolute best form of birth control there is. Beth and I didn’t hold out much hope that Emmett would sleep in the bed, but he did. For the first time since time immemorial I need an alarm clock to wake up in the morning. Gone is the foot in the small of my back, or the sudden back handed bitch slap.

He got just a little older, like the slow drip-drip-drip of water into an empty bucket—except it isn’t empty anymore. Time moves slowly, like the ox plowing the field, and yet it flies when you’re having fun. Soon I’ll have to steal my kisses when he is sleeping.

Before Jackson, when we found out we were having a boy, I had already planned his life. I couldn’t wait to teach him to throw a football, to build a model airplane; I wanted to juice my soul and serve it to him in a silver chalice. Now he is six, stretched out and skinny, no longer a baby, but a little boy with a mind of his own.

The earth is patient is another way of saying what’s your hurry? My answer of course is, there’s plenty of time for that later. Right now my boys want to be silly, to hide in obvious places, to run at half-speed just to be caught.

Emmett “calls” me at work now.

“Hi daddy.”

“Hey little buddy, what are you doing?”

“Haburbity glub ker go go.”

“Oh, you’re watching Go Diego Go?”

“Yeah.”

“Ok, I love you, let me talk to mommy.”

“Lubby too daddy.”

That my friends is as good as it gets.