Elements

As an Editor and AD, I spend most of my work life pulling together elements--bits of footage and audio and images, all designed to work together to tell a story. You might say that I am "in my element" when I am doing one of these jobs. Today, however, as I took photos and videos--elements, as it were--of my son's robotics tournament, I was decidedly OUT of my element. While the elements may fit together to tell the story of the day, they will leave out the stretches of time when I, as a parent there, had no idea what to do with myself, when I felt capable of neither understanding the robotics goals nor socializing with other accompanying grownups whom I might never see again. The stretches of time when I was out of my element both in a corner reading the book I'd brought and in the crowd cheering on the team (since I was never quite sure how they were doing).
 
No matter how many job and parenting experiences we've been through, no matter how good we think we've become at the social and supportive parent game, we seem always to face new parenting situations that throw us out of our element. You can put all the elements--choosing transportation, ensuring on-time arrival with the necessary props, adding a smile or "attaboy" when appropriate--together, but doing so guarantees only that you will be prepared. The rest, as they say, is up to you. As with any new situation, you make the choice about how you will fit in. You make the choices that will determine--short-term or long-term--if you will feel "in your element."
 
Perhaps things will be different at the next robotics tournament. Perhaps not. And perhaps it is enough--more than enough--that my son WAS in his element--building and testing and hanging out with kids as fascinated as he was at these little buildable, "teachable" machines. And perhaps that is the key to these situations where we feel out of our element. If the kid for whom we have assembled all the elements is happy, what does it really matter if we are out of our element for a few hours? If we are lucky, we have plenty of places in our lives to feel "in our element." And plenty is quite often more than enough.