Eli was diagnosed with asthma last week after his second trip to the emergency room for respiratory distress. Basically if he gets a cold, he’s going to have significant trouble breathing. We now have inhaled steroids to use in his nebulizer: once a day as a preventative measure and twice if he’s having any issues beyond that (wheezing, coughing, trouble sleeping, etc.). Add to this the albuterol that he gets every four hours if he’s wheezing and it means there is a fair amount of time each day in which I have to make Eli sit still for a prolonged amount of time. (For Eli, a prolonged amount of time is anything longer than about 30 seconds.)
Enter YouTube, and one of my all-time favorite music videos.
Eli will watch this on repeat as many times as we will let him. I’m pretty sure he’d watch it all day if he could. He absolutely loves it. He names all the different objects he knows as it goes along (“Red truck! Ball! Car! Ball! Balloon! Car!”) and dances up and down most of the video. And as soon as the song is over, Eli applauds effusively and then says, “AGAIN! AGAIN! AGAIN!” until you give in and hit the refresh button.
I really don’t mind, though. I’ve been a fan of OK Go since I saw them live at Metro Chicago back in college. They put on a fantastic show and I was thrilled when they hit the big-time with their now-famous treadmill video. “This Too Shall Pass” is catchy, happy, and has great lyrics. And even more than I like this song, I like the video.
Because this Rube Goldberg machine is life at its finest. It is messy and chaotic and wild and carefully timed and crazy and choreographed and beautiful. Things fall over, get flung through the air, and are broken. Hardly any object in this video is used for its intended purpose. A guitar makes music by turning in a circle and clanking its attached spoons on glasses of water, while a piano’s sound is only heard when it’s smashed on the floor. Lego people row a boat, an arrow pops a balloon, and a rolling tire turns on lamps. At the end, there is a crowd of people standing and cheering while celebratory paint is shot out of cannons at OK Go’s faces. And over the top of all of it, the refrain of, “Let it go – this too shall pass.”
Because all of this is what I want Eli to know about life. That it’s difficult and simple, colorful and loud, about small details and the big picture. That there is always a song to be found, and that it should be sung with vigor. That things aren’t always what they seem. That sometimes beauty only shows up after something is broken, and sometimes only after lots of things are broken. That he’ll need other people’s help along the way. That flowers appear out of nowhere and so do hammers. That umbrellas are for keeping the rain off his face, but also for swinging around and dancing under. That some days may mean him standing under things falling from the sky, some may mean sitting and watching, some may mean running to another place, some may mean having paint flung in his face. That when he comes to the end of his days, there will be a crowd of witnesses standing and cheering for all that he accomplished and all that he loved well.
So I really don’t mind watching this video twelventy thousand and sixty-threeve times: because it’s lovely and pure and true, and both Eli and I should think on these things. And I need reminding that this too shall pass, that I should let things go, and that the morning is coming – not if, but when.