The Bare Necessities

When I was young, I loved the movie, The Jungle Book.

I loved the inherent dangers of it all. How an interaction between this innocent child and each new animal could go either way. Would he be eaten alive, would he make new friend? And the friendships were the real draw for me. I was excited to think and touched to see an impossibility become a possibility. It thrilled me. Somehow many years before I would come to know my black sheep status within my own family, I was drawn to this outsider and how he seemingly overcame these boundaries. How he defied these laws of nature. That aspect spoke to the unrecognized rebel that I was. I loved that Mogley was perfectly normal yet so different at the same time. I loved his pure heart and good intentions mixed with the nievity of a child. The bonds of love and sense of protection made me feel such a joy. It was like seeing the rewards for the perils of defying logic. To be accepted where one doesn’t necessarily belong was an example of the power of love and it’s conquering abilities. Of course the dangers and sadness were apart of the journey, but that didn’t dampen my hopeful spirit about it one bit. There was something about his aloneness coupled with curiosity and the ability to give and receive kindness that resonated with me. I couldn’t describe any of this as a child, I just knew it gave me great happiness to see.

Years later as I was climbing into the love of my life, the parallels of this story were so obvious, yet so new to me. It was like discovering it for the first time all over again, only better. Now I could relate to it in ways that explained why I was so drawn to it early on. It was a metaphor for so many of the choices and experiences I was living with in my early 20’s. I met a boy and fell in love. Only I wasn’t supposed to love this boy and he wasn’t supposed to love me. A good white southern girl should marry a good white southern boy. This was an unspoken rule that spoke volumes in all aspects of my upbringing.

In the movie, the way the animals showed Mogley how to treat and respect the other animals was beautiful. How they taught him the practicality of his position in relation to an environment he was naturally foreign and akin to at the same time, was inspiring. It coinsided with my real life experiences and supported dreams filled with hope and the thirst for knowledge. It showed me how with the right understanding and applications I too could flourish in a world that was set against my desires and inclinations. I could thrive if I was willing to take on the challenges and frustrations I would face. No pain, no gain, right? To be brave in the face of the unknown, to be humble and receptive to the lessons I would encounter was the message I was clinging to without knowing. For me the good outweighed the bad in this new relationship and made my fears take a second place to my enlightenment. I was growing. I was going where no one in my family had dared go. I was willingly separating myself from much of what I had always known. Yet I was stubborn to some of the concepts I was being shown. I was inherently skeptical of certain aspects and allowed ignorance to take over at times. In other situations I leaped high and long, knowing there was no real safety net. It was those moments that solidified my reserve and ability to surrender myself to the scary and incomprehensible ideas I was struggling with accepting as reality. (Insert white priviledge) It was also a sense of protection from this man that propelled me forward in the face of uncertainty. At first it was curiosity that kept me moving forward, but with each reassurance of safety, I inched a little closer to a greater knowledge, a greater appreciation, a greater love. The opening of my mind’s capacity was more strengthened by the ever expanding love of my heart. It made the eventual reconciling of the two into a more whole person. Ironically the expansion and unification of heart and mind is never a completed process. At least if I am doing it right. At some point I had to accept that for all my accomplished lessons in learning about another race, there would be a lifetime of them still to come. It’s like climbing a mountain only to realise it was just your first mountain. It can be deflating, but it can also propel you forward recalling on the sense of pride you felt when you reached the peak. To reach the top is to accept that while you will never be one of them, you will know who they are and who you are. You will know what you contribute and exactly where you belong. It is up to each of us to keep climbing after realizing ourselves.

My husband and I have been together for 26 years and married for 20 of them. I didn't just fall in love with him, I fell in love with an entire race of people who were previously unknown to me. He helped me expand my world in ways that I would have never known without his love. Our stories have combined to produce 3 beautiful children. We made a family different from Mogley's, but both were conceived with the Bare Necessities.