The four whales of the apocalypse (week 2 of life in a pandemic for a 9-year old).
The snippets of joy that skitter through shadows and sunlight.
There may be families that are getting through this pandemic without occasionally - or frequently - wondering around in some combination of diaper, underwear, and/or shirtlessness. Those families may exist, and I pity them.
A pandemic at 9 years old.
We walked on a dock and he reminded us of one his great fears: whales. “I don’t get why so many people are scared of sharks,” he says. “I really, really, really want to see Jaws.” He continued. “I am so terrified of being in a boat and then a whale comes up from underneath. That terrifies me. That’s what scares me about going out in a boat, besides running out of gas.”
A blog started, a blog continued. It’s easy to start one. It’s harder to keep up. And he has.
The giggle of a boy at watching the two co-stars of Jojo Rabbit, his favourite film, as they giggle and answer questions together.
He was on the phone with a friend who had FaceTimed. This friend was playing XBox while speaking to him, and I caught the end of the conversation: “You should have your parents get you an XBox,” the boy said.
”Oh, yeah,” our son said, in the most dismissive way my fertile imagination could imagine. He got off, and I spoke with him afterwards about such things, and if he saw them being important to him. It was a short and wonderful conversation, and I love so dearly his interest in art, in film, in drawing and stories and writing and inventing and playing and running and producing. I love that.
One of the great joys I have is sharing my love of cinema and film and movies with our kids. We watched Cast Away, the 2000 Tom Hanks drama about a Fed Ex type A fellow who’s marooned on an island. I had forgotten what a beautiful little film it is and how much it focuses at the beginning and end on the relationships and his internal emotional state, amidst figuring out concrete ways to keep his body alive. There’s adventure, suspense, danger, action…but there’s also big stretches of introspection and silence; the learning how to survive amidst isolation and the lack of any (human) companionship. There’s a lesson in there somewhere. SPOILER ALERT COMING UP: At the end, the kids said: That’s it!? That’s the ending?! It’s sad! And we’ve been talking this week about the difference between sad and tragic, or sad and bittersweet. It’s a bittersweet film. Also, there is a wonderful kissing scene in the rain. It’s up there with the great ones.
So enthralled with a book (C.S. Lewis’s crack at the nine-year old’s beloved The Odyssey), that he simultaneously eats cereal and turns pages; an endeavor that is partially successful in execution, but does nothing to divert attention or joy from his focused face sticking atop a frame wearing Spider-Man pajamas.
He has become a voracious reader over the last year, and is tackling some big ones right now, including The Book Thief and Brave New World. Our conversations are many and frequent as he processes various bits of what he reads. I love it. He sits on a bench outside in a damp fog and reads a partial chapter, immersed in trying to follow and understand. I love the fog, I love books. Of him I am too fond.
If one could choose two illustrators to emulate, one could do worse than choosing Mo Willems and Quentin Blake. And that is who he is fixated on, and I love that. Pages and pages of illustrations filling and floating throughout our home.
The way his younger brother, by six years, watches, observes, notes his every move, and tries to replicate. The way he steps up to be a mentor, protector, teacher…enforcer. Yeah. Enforcer. Sometimes love is tough. And rough, as they wrestle like lithe half-clothed dirty Spartans.
He loves so many things. Greek history, Greek mythology, Rick Riordan books about mythology based on timeless tales of wonder from small Southern European countries, drawing illustrations of Medusa and friends…there is a wide and diverse array of topics he loves.
Okay. So his interests are broad, though throughout his lifetime they are generally anchored by something central (see above). I love his interest in learning, discovering, and developing his skills in different areas, including a wide array of disciplines in the visual and performing arts. But music: oh, music, that is part of me like oxygen. I swore when we began having children that no matter what hardships we might face, we would always ensure they had ready access to art supplies and music equipment. And we have held true to that; rarely turning down instruments that migrate from various locations and peoples into our home. Some get used frequently, some little. I was also determined that I would not turn music into something horrible. That I would fight to help make it fun. I feel like I don’t always succeed on that level. Mandating a minimum fifteen minutes of playing together doesn’t seem dreadful, and it is so, so so so beautiful to hear two of them playing guitar and ukulele and singing along to ABBA, the Beatles, various ‘80s classics, and any number of worship songs. But it is something I have to remind and ask. And I have to remind myself that it’s not my place to guilt them - or him specifically - into loving to play. I’d like to think at bare minimum he’ll have the skills to someday play what he wants, when he wants, with who he wants. What is not important is my dormant, sort-of-secret desire to have a Von Trapp Long troupe of musicians, gathering to make melodies for whoever, whenever, simply for the love of making music. I can’t force that. So I hope that providing the accessibility and providing the forum, a small expectation and mandate, and the osmotic force of my own love of music will bleed through and mean something, and someday I’ll have to yell at him to stop doing something besides playing music all day. But really: I love that kid. With a depth of my soul that is forever, and he is music to it, regardless of whether he ever picks up an instrument again or not.
There are some things that are true at 9, and this is one: 9-year olds need fresh air, and they need to be able to move.
