Out of Time

In early childhood, we know in our very bones that relationships matter. I instantly loved this aphorism — time is the currency of relationships — when I heard it last week. A relationship is truly a fluid and ever-changing thing, but we tend to use the word to describe an end state. At some point, the accumulation of interactions (i.e. time) hits a tipping point and becomes a Relationship. That point is probably different for each relationship.

We are often asked, “what is your earliest memory?” and often our responses reflect emotional memories — events where there was elevated emotion that prompted us to lay down a memory. My early memories are all within my family as that was where my time was spent.

I’ve been thinking about some of my early memories because my Dad died a few weeks ago and I cherish the memories I’ve adorned over time with him in them.

One of those is the day I apparently bit Elizabeth at preschool. As I’ve written about many times, many of us in early childhood have origin stories in the field that begin, “Well, my mom…” and mine continues “…started a co-op preschool.” Dad picked me up from preschool this day, I assume that Mom was cleaning up. Our preschool was held in a nearly-abandoned storefront on the main street of my little town that year, before we used the local athletic club, and well before my Mom secured a portable classroom on the grounds of our elementary school.

I have snippets of memories of the building, the other children, the empty lot that served as our outdoor space, and the field trip to mail valentines to our grandparents across the street at the post office.

I don’t remember biting Elizabeth. I do remember that, after a fundraiser for the preschool, I went with my mom to a store in town where a life-size baby doll was purchased. I do remember that I had no such dolly of my own. I can imagine that many preschoolers wanted to play with the “big baby” as she was called. But I don’t remember biting.

Dan Siegel has created a way to talk about the different parts of our brain (again, not my area of expertise, but I know a few things that help me make sense of my behavior and that of children) using a model of the hand. I strongly suspect that the biting was a time when my upstairs brain became unhinged, and so of course I didn’t have any verbally accessible memory of the incident.

Incidentally, I DO remember the time I bit my sister while we were meant to be washing dishes. Another story for another time.

I have always loved these memories — the knowledge that I was “a biter” — because I believe they expanded my compassion and formed the foundation of my core work in the world as a toddler teacher.

Toddlers bite.

Sometimes they are out of mind with a flipped lid. Sometimes they’ve built up such a stack of interactions with biting that it has hit a tipping point and become a relationship. Toddlers bite.

But I don’t remember biting Elizabeth.

Here is the whole story. I was sitting in the front seat of one of our blue Volkswagen bugs, minding my own business, when Dad said to me, “Did you bite Elizabeth today?” The tone behind the words was curious, not angry. But something in the words or the tone or the interaction was “real,” opening up an emotional experience for me.

It pulled me into time, into the laying down of a memory.

Memory is not my area of expertise in human development. What I do know about memories is that whenever we take them out and revisit them, we re-remember them differently from how they actually happened. I’ve heard this referred to as “re-adornment” and I love that.

I wonder this about those earliest memories — were we really not in time and aware in the moments before and after the part we remember? The emotional experience was less of a specific emotion like sad/mad/glad and more of an awareness of being in time with the people and experiences around me, in this case, my Dad.

If you had seen my Dad in those days, you’d know he was an super-sized person. He was 6’7” tall and when I was young, sported a thick mid-length beard and dark glasses when outside. If you had ever met him in those years, though, you would know that you could hand him your baby and that baby would go settle and go to sleep in minutes. Or if she wasn’t tired, she’d endlessly unsnap the snaps on the flannel shirts he wore — pop-pop-pop-pop — and he would endlessly snap them back up for her.

He took his power seriously — he could have terrified me with punishment when I bit Elizabeth. He could have chosen not to engage with tiny babies. He could have said no to the endless schema play of curious toddlers. He could have used his power for all kinds of things. He chose care. Just like Spiderman, he chose responsibility.

It’s one of the most important gifts I received from my Dad, and now that I am out of time with him, I want to write about all of those gifts. I, too, am super-sized. I, too, hold power and privilege. I, too, choose care and responsibility. Our time together has ended, but our stories haven’t and I’m beyond grateful to share them here.