‘Connect two obvious things that aren’t connected.’

Teaching

How much do I actually teach? We go places, and they tell me stuff and we talk. I know little.

People talk about the importance of traveling overseas, and I agree. But there’s a connected idea that gets less coverage, and I think it’s also valuable: simply go to new places. Or, go to old places and do new things there.

For example, we went to the skate park (old place) and did something new (played frisbee).

This is the crux of a thousand billion stories, inventions, creations, innovations, ideas, and pieces of art.

Take something normal or obvious.
Take something else normal or obvious, but that is disconnected to the first.
Connect it to the first.

The learning curve is short and simple and easy. You can start doing it right now. Immediately.

To get really reaallly good at it…to the point where it’s interesting or valuable to others? That might take a lot of practice. That whole 10,000 hours thing.

Forget about an audience though, what’s important is that these are the things that make life different and interesting and exciting. Taking two things and putting them together in different ways. There’s infinite variations. It truly is one of the best universal suggestions (or reminders) I have for anyone. Anyone, everywhere, anytime, of all ages, wherever you’re at. It just requires a little bit of imagination, curiosity, and a sense of wonder . How could this normal thing be experienced a little differently?

I’m not a genius for playing frisbee with kids in a skate park. But for a partial morning, it was a unique, fun, and different experience on a late winter day. It made today a little bit different and a little bit special. That is important to me: to try and find or make a little bit of special in every day.

Things I learned

“Volcanoes erupted and made these rocks. I learned it from Octonauts.”

-a 5-year old, hiking along a lake trail

I was secretly hoping he might say something about remembering how I taught him that long ago. But no. And so it goes (credit: Kurt Vonnegut).

Boy at library

Are you a bad adult if you get irritated at kids for doing nothing really wrong, but just being…their age?

I had our Youngers (5, 2) at the library. Libraries are sort of a secular sacred place for us. We spend many hours regularly, and although I am grateful for the many services public libraries offer and the many relevant roles they provide to communities, we go for one reason: the books.

We go for the books. Not to play games or get on computers or jump around the benches or hop on our phones. We go for books. To check them out as well as to read there.

Okay fine, we also go to converse with the librarians. Pro life tip: make friends with as many library people as possible. You will be a better and more interesting person for it.

So the boys find their books, and sprawl out, and thumb through. They’re both pre-readers, although our 5-year old is slowly sounding out words now. They’ll camp out in a stack, sometimes separate, sometimes together, reading through books. In this case, a book on volcanoes. They decided they’re big into volcanoes.

A boy comes along. Maybe 6 or 7. “Don’t rip the pages!” he tells them.

They look up briefly, ignore him, and go back to reading. I’m not saying it’s okay to ignore someone who’s making conversation, but I also can’t say I blame someone for ignoring someone who just stepped into your business while you’re quietly, respectfully reading.

He continued: “Don’t rip the pages!”

I smiled at him. Thanks for the reminder! I said. Defintely don’t want to rip any pages. I nudged them to acknowledge him and say hi, which they did with the minimum level of interaction required before burying themselves into tsunamis and volcanoes again.

“Make sure they don’t rip the pages!” he urged me. His tone led me to believe that perhaps page-ripping may be a challenge he’s been working to overcome, and I struggled to find internal patience.

His dad came around the corner, and suggested that “…see, his Daddy is there and he’ll probably make sure they don’t rip any pages.” The boy disappeared, and then came back two more times, each time with a different book that he plopped in front of them.

He returned a third time to make sure they were reading the ones he picked out for them.

They were not.

“Why aren’t they reading the ones I got?” he demanded.

I kindly reminded them to acknowledge him and thank him for his suggestion, and then kindly reminded him that they were in the middle of another book of their own choosing, and he did not accept this reminder well.

“Why aren’t you reading the books I gave you?“ he asked, followed by: “Don’t rip the pages!”

This is where I feel like such a hypocrite. The irritation and impatience I feel about so many other things is suddenly razor-laser sharp focused on this one kid. And what is he? A kid. A child. A perfectly decent child who’s no different than many others his age in so many ways. Which means he’s sometimes annoying. Just like ours can be sometimes.

Except…I have a special level of impatience for people who interrupt the reading rituals of others.

There’s no joyful ending or big moral lesson here. It’s just a happening. Eventually we left, and in a small act of defiance and ex cathedra demonstration, I refused to check out the books he ‘gave’ us.

Am I a jerk sometimes? I might be.

Cookies

Oh boy,
I said, looking at the cookie box,
there’s three of us, and there’s only two cookies left. I wonder if I should just eat both of them, to make things easy.

He thoughtfully considered the possibilities, no hint of smile cracking his five-year old face. Finally, he looked at me with great care and affection:

You know Daddy,
he sighed.
…they’re not actually that healthy for you.

So,
I asked,
are you suggesting that perhaps I shouldn’t have one?

Well,
he said,
you say that we should eat healthy foods, and cookies aren’t very healthy, so maybe you shouldn’t eat a cookie right now.

I think he earned his cookie.