The Daily Dance Of Family Life

The electric kettle clicks off. I give some of the water to Jessica for the breakfast porridge and take the rest to warm the flasks for hot lunches for the children. I need a little more, so I fill the kettle again. The children are in the kitchen now, wearing their uniforms and queueing at the refrigerator to pack fruits and vegetables into their lunch boxes. I fill everyone’s water bottles then switch to unloading the dishwasher, working around Jessica who is now preparing breakfast fruit and the children who are laying the table and getting the juice out of the refrigerator (which has hardly closed). As the five of us step around each other and pause and dive in and out of cabinets and counter space to do our various morning jobs, someone observes that our movements around the kitchen are like a dance. We laugh, but it’s true.

The steps and counter-steps of family life really are like a daily dance. Some days it’s an awkward, baltering dance, improvised according to the needs of the moment, which doesn’t always work very well. It’s not unusual in the madness of the morning routine for us to step on each other’s toes—sometimes metaphorically, sometimes literally. It takes daily effort to stay in step with each other and rehearse the movements of patience, forgiveness, and appreciation for the needs and desires of others. But as we practice, we grow. The spotlight of our attention begins to expand beyond ourselves. Our clumsy feet and hearts slowly learn to remember the steps of love and commitment. Together, we move (and are moved), we lift (and are lifted) in ways that simply would not be possible otherwise. Like the movements of well-practiced dancers, the shared life of family members can also grow to possess a mysterious power and beauty that far exceeds the simplicity of our individual steps. Our morning dance around each other in the kitchen may not be much to look at, but it has a kind of beauty of its own. It is the art of moving well in relation to others. It is the daily dance of family life.