The Wild Child

Her huge doe-eyes looked so sad; she was leaving in 24 hours. Her skin looked wan; from a month of partying with people she hadn’t seen for 3 years; as usual her broad smile dazzled. She looked tired; but had dashed out to meet me for lunch at the elite restaurant I’d picked to snatch some private catch-up time before returning to her other home on another continent. We had deliberately squeezed space to have this brief time to share. People around saw only 2 ordinary women a generation apart lunching elegantly, but Niece and I have a common bond of an unspoken understanding forged over the years.

As a child she had reached out to me when others deemed her to be a problem, and then as now, I recognized parts of myself in her and so was able to respond. You know, a wild streak needs more than most people can handle with nurture, and we cannot handle it alone. It is an innate streak that is unasked for but must be lived with and managed, somehow. Relatives, like society often looked at her with wonderment because she shockingly bucks the trend. But they had done the same with Cousin (her father), and with me and with my father, and my daughters too. So we live and learn how best to cope by juggling and balancing, teetering and tottering.

As she ate her food as correctly as any book on etiquette would recommend, my mind filled with the words I’d heard a mere couple of hours before “To you it’s all about protocols, etiquette,
procedures and everything else that if practiced to a tee, everyone might as well just stand still and not move at all.” Oh honey! If only you knew. BUT you can’t be allowed to know. We all live in a world of consequences that stay with us for a lifetime. In a perfect world Alan Shore – the t.v. character of Boston Legal who amuses me – achieves justice for society while engaging in the most irreverent dialogues that he does not get penalized for! What a delicious fantasy!

But if you are not a fictitious character, well ………….. There had been one of my MBA lecturers – what a Wild Child! Naturally superlatively brilliant, his impartations were par excellence and we his students benefited greatly from it. But his dark side gave him so much pleasure that he could not balance the two. Sadly he lost the respect of most of his colleagues and students. Genius Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart did not fare too well either.

My Dad however, expertly juggled and managed the many facets of who he was, and left an eternal legacy of respect, whether it was grudging or not. Cousin too has made his mark, is extremely successful, and celebrated his daughters’ visit with the largesse he has industriously earned; like letting off fireworks at her lavish party at his mansion. Has he been delighted by her previous wildness? Absolutely not at all. BUT that is where unconditional love comes into play, and evokes the freedom of the Wild Child to choose responsibly instead of rebelliously.

You see, it’s safe for the Wild Child to come out only when surrounded by unconditional love; not by expectations – just unconditional love. And because that is rare, social norms just have to prevail for most of the time – we do need to show respect as part of showing our love to whomever. Thank you God, for the people who do love even the jarring Me. Do you feel that way too, Wild Child?

Niece, come back again soon so that we can talk and laugh with abandon at what only we seem to find humorous! Daughters, let’s continue to make time and space for benign, wicked, hilarity! Yes, God loves us just the way we are.