Hide and Seek

From our earliest cries of hunger or distress, we long for, need to be found. From infancy we demand to be important to someone outside of ourselves. This response nourishes our spirits and enables us to grown into fully human beings that can respond to others. We need affirmation that we matter, not just cosmically, but personally, interpersonally. The lack of this confirmation creates fear and phobia and insecurity and antisocial behavior.

A baby panics when mommy leaves him at the nursery. A toddler wines and wheedles and demands his own way. A child needs to be tucked-in repeatedly. A teenager wears outrageous or inappropriate clothing. An adult flirts with sex or drinks herself to "significance." We just need someone to find us and know us. We need to be fully acknowledged and deemed worthy.

In the movie, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," the son shaves his almost-invalid father who is confined to a fourth floor apartment. The father questions him about his life, his choices, his career. He slowly and carefully scrapes off the bristly whiskers. When he is done with the shave, the son tweaks his father's nose, ruffles his hair and hugs him. The voice-over says to the viewer, "I think we will always be children." Don't we find that to be true, no matter how old we are?

Why do we then play peek-a-boo? Why are we always testing the limits of love? If life isn't a game, why do we play as if it is? We like to play hide and seek because we know that there is a certain outcome, a predicatability that we count on. I call, "Marco." You reply, "Polo." I hold my breath and swim towards you and find you. You call "time out" and we all come back to "base." There is security in that. In relationships there needs to be an "olly, olly, oxen free." Come out, come out, wherever you are! If I can't find you, then at least we need to start again at home base.

Whose turn is it, anyway?