Controlling Love

Back to a hot New York City with hot living.  It's still fairly quiet here, and there are no family members to live for, but one another, which is something.  And also students, which is something, too.  I get to play "parent" to people at many ages and stages, today a sixth grader finding himself and pushing away from parents.  This was our second solo lesson (no mom) and I'm finding it interesting to hear the harmless mischief he now confides to me.  I'm not his parent, and don't intend to tattle (unless something seems alarming), but being an adult, it is a lesson on this necessary time and stage in life:  finding ways around one's parents and learning how to claim one's space.  My role right now is tangential and relatively easy compared to his parents.  Perhaps one day I'll be able to think back on the humor of his perspective and laugh at myself from his eyes, trying to control, control, control, someone I love and forgetting that that love is the reason why.