Yin Yang

Mike and I are really the 2 different sides of a coin. We really are so different sometimes that there's no denying that opposites attract.

I have been reading this book called "The Developing Child" by Elizabeth Murphy and have read aloud to Mike and we had laughed together about how different we are. To illustrate (in "childish "manner):

Mike and Kin went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water;
Mike came down, balancing the pail on his crown
And Kin rolled down the hill in laughter.

If Mike was Little Red Riding Hood, he would have beaten the wolf to grandma's house, despite the fact that the wolf took a short cut, because Mike would be so focussed and fast in his task. If Kin was Little Red Riding Hood, she would have found the wolf fast asleep in grandma's bed because she had taken her time to smell all the roses along the way and talked to all the creatures of the forest on her journey.

If all the earth was apple pie,
And all the seas were ink,
Kin would also look like an apple pie
and Mike would have written till he's pink.

If Mike and Kin were Hansel and Grettle he would have found the way home with no trouble and we would have not discovered the gingerbread house that belonged to the witch, saved for Kin's nose and love for bread. Then we would have waited for the witch to leave and then taken a whole wall home to share with our villagers.

But this is what we do for each other because we love each other:

He will stop to let me smell the roses and be glad to see me so thrilled, then get us on with the journey to make sure we arrive. I will exclaim upon every rose we chance upon, but will just let my eyes feast on the beauty and deny my nose the pleasure.

When we are at a steakhouse, I will order fries to go with my meat because I know he likes that and will give them to him. He will order the baked potato and give that to me. He will pass his salad and I will give him an extra cut of meat. "And so between us both, you see, we lick the platter clean."

He reads almost everything on-line. I love the feel and smell of the printed page. So he "hogs" the computer and pays for the books I buy and collect. But we both know we have the problem of lack of space, be it on the floor or the hard drive.

But we are not just good to each other, we are also good for each other. Like the Chinese concept of balance in YinYang, we are becoming a better person every time we accommodate the other, and in doing so, we are becoming more whole as a person, just as we are complete with each other.

For our Kids, they will be brought up in balance because of mum and dad's difference: technology and bedtime storybooks, racing and dawdling, mouse clicking and finger painting, fast food and fried noodles, computer games and wooden trains, sleeping in tents and cuddling on the sofa, catching insects and watching Animal Planet, playing football and Scrabble, etc.

I'm sure a lot of people know what I mean first hand;
"It's A Small World After All."