This year, I resolved to let go of the emotions attached to being late. I am an anxious person. Being late has been a source of stress and guilt. Who benefits from these emotions? After all, they don’t get me there sooner.
A few weeks ago, I had one of those mornings perfectly constructed to make me break my resolution. My husband was away for work. Two kids with two different drop-offs in two different locations at the same time I am supposed to be driving to a third location for a board meeting. I thought, okay, you have three choices: be late and stressed and stress everyone else out too, be late and stressed and keep it to yourself, or just be late. I resolved to just be late. And then, you know what? We each ended up where we needed to be, and everyone seemed just fine about it.
At the Skirball, we have a popular children’s exhibit inspired by the Noah’s Ark flood story. The last gallery has a rainbow created by a spotlight casting through a prism, turning continually, fading, and brightening with each rotation.
On my best days, I treat a morning with my kids like a rainbow sighting. The hustle and negotiation of a family’s weekday routine can seem as chaotic and harassing as a thunderstorm. But the time together is ephemeral. If I don’t bask in the warmth and color of my rascals’ antics now, when will I ever?
And I wonder, when else am I the storm cloud, when I could just be the sun?
Jessie Kornberg is the President and CEO of the Skirball Cultural Center. In place of a middle name her parents gave her the letter c, the scientific abbreviation for the speed of light. skirball.org
For Every Jewel There is a Question:
When are you a storm cloud, and when are you the sun?
