waking up looking down...

not often does the song i hear on the radio send me scrambling to find it once i get home.

but last friday, i got a call from greg, could we pick him up from work? it was pouring outside, already dark out, and he wouldn't get home til after 8pm at this rate, so francis and i hopped in the car, with francis choosing his new privilege: riding shotgun.

there was crazy traffic. moving slow, we hopscotched around on the radio, he didn't want to listen to classic rock, i didn't want to listen to christmas music (already??!!), so when i finally heard the beastie boys, i breathed a sigh of relief and turned it up. LOUD. i looked over at francis and his little shoulders were already groovin' to the beat, and i asked him: do you know this song? he said no. i said -- THIS is the rap music of MY school-days. i think he was a little surprised that he could like something that was so old. it didn't sound old. it sounded, well, awesome.

and then, while we were sitting there stop-n-go in the rain, in the dark, music loud, with the red tail-lights glowing off the windshield, the song morphed into a song HE knew. arcade fire. i said: you know this song? he said yes. everybody knows this song. and then he was really groovin'...

sometimes, randomly, forces come together to make a moment truly memorable. i don't know if he realizes how special it was, but for me, we have -lately- few moments of true togetherness, where i'm not buggin' him, or he's not buggin' me, where we are just chill, enjoying one another's company. to be honest, those moments come more easily and often when we travel, when we can be surprised, and curious, and discover things together. when we are far from the grind of daily life. at home, it's trickier, but sometimes those moments can still slip in.

we've been singing the song for days...

p.s.
after my foray down the rabbit-hole of the world wide web, i was able to find no information on where to buy it, but i've put an inquiry into kexp. the song was a mash-up of beastie boys: looking down the barrel of a gun, and arcade fire: wake up. it was credited as: arcade boys: waking up looking down the barrel. if you play them side by side on youtube, you can almost hear it.

things that don't drive me crazy.

i. love. wikipedia.
it is instant access to countless encyclopedias.
i was the child who was told to go "look it up in the dictionary" when i didn't know a word, and then would sit and read the whole page because i was curious. i try to encourage that curiosity in francis, who, thankfully, loves to read and discover. although he is growing up in a culture where trips to the library are getting fewer and far between, i'm finding all this new technology and instant access to information isn't decreasing the appetite for knowledge, but INCREASING it. when i was a kid, i was limited to my school, or my city's library. now we have at our fingertips cultures crossing cultures, and information that seems never-ending! we look up stuff on a daily basis. --did you know...? --did you know...?? we watch a movie, say: the secret of kells. then we go look up "the book of kells" because i can't really remember the details. and then we're like: "hmm... what's an illuminated manuscript?" and hopscotch over there. and then we're like: "what's Vulgate? and Vetis Latina? what's Insular Style?" and then before you know it, we've hopscotched across continents on the world wide web... another hour or so goes by with our brains just absorbing, busy, learning.
this is something i can't get enough of.
our children are lucky...

basketball diaries

francis has been in sports most of his life, from soccer and tennis when he was little, many years of baseball and quite a few winters of city-league basketball. we have finally entered that especially charged time in childhood: being on your school's sport team. this is our (his) first. i have signed multitudes of parent release forms, medical forms, i-won't-sue-you forms... but i have NEVER seen a form quite like this one before. it really takes the cake. parents worry enough as it is, this one just spells it all out for you, so you can really worry much more effectively and specifically. francis has always been a bit of a cautious child, and also a literal one. i thought it best we paraphrase it for him,(and keep the worrying to us) or else he might change his mind about playing any sport again!

after a page of rules, the participant is informed of the following (copied exactly, emphasis theirs):

" I am aware that basketball is a high-risk sport and that practicing or competing in basketball will be a dangerous and unpredictable activity involving MANY RISKS OF INJURY. I understand that the dangers and risk of practicing and competing in basketball include, but are not limited to, death, serious neck and spinal injuries which may result in complete or partial paralysis, brain damage, blindness, serious injury to virtually all internal organs, serious injury to virtually all bones, joints, ligaments, muscles, tendons and other aspects of my body, general health and well-being. I understand that the dangers and risk of practicing or competing in basketball may result not only in serious injury, but in serious impairment of my future abilities to earn a living, to engage in other business, social and recreational activities and generally to enjoy life."

??!!

about a boy

i love this picture, because, on a typical gloomy day in october, a ray of sunshine pierced thru the clouds, illuminating flowers outside our windows that should not still be blooming.

2 big events happened in october, if you don't count the usual trials of life that involve parenting a 7th grader daily big events --school, math homework, jazz trumpet lessons, fall baseball (what? very similar to regular baseball, except instead of being sometimes wet and cold it is always wet and cold...) youth group, sleepovers, endless discussions of video-game-time-allotment, chores.

many of you have already heard about this as it was talked up quite a bit on facebook,-- francis' opportunity to read his poem "ode to birds" as opening act for SAL event for poet Robert Pinsky at the Benaroya Hall. so i won't go into length here, except to say that i think this is something he will remember his whole life. the oddity and specialness of it. to have grown-ups, other than your parents, or your parents friends, come up to you and congratulate you on something you created. at the artist reception before the event, we mentioned to francis that we should go introduce ourselves to Robert Pinsky, and while we were still talking to someone else, looked up to see that he had already marched on over to him, and was engaging him in conversation. for quite some time. when we walked over, we introduced ourselves as the parents, and mr. pinsky threw his arm around francis' shoulder conspiritorally, and loudly whispered, with a wink at us, "parents just don't get us, do they?" and francis heartily agreed: "no, they do not!" and we laughed because it is true. of course we don't. but it only further illuminated the fact that francis is growing up, and we are quickly becoming "the parents". and try as hard as we might to be good stewards of this role, we, much more than we would like, (as francis likes to say:) epic fail.

we are feeling now more than ever the 3rd man out, in our little family of three. if greg and francis go off doing the many variety of sports that occupy their time, i feel left out. and when greg and i are occupied in talking to eachother, francis is left out. or if we're both talking to him, he feels ganged up on. there is no other sibling to get his back, or distract us from him. he has no one to share in his feelings that mom and dad are being a pain in the butt. it's getting harder and harder to drag stories of school out of him. "fine." "nothing happened." "nothing interesting." etc. etc. "can i go now?"

which is why this poem so surprised us.

it was a little window into his world, and when it was out in the open, he wasn't embarrassed to share it with us. he was embarrassed by the attention and the praise, because to him it was no big deal. he even told us he didn't think it was a very good poem, that he didn't get the chance to read it in class like all the other kids, because he "hadn't followed the assignment." it was "supposed" to be an ode to cloves. (?? really? seriously?) and if you didn't know that francis is a literalist and a perfectionist, well...i shudder to think how he would have internalized this, because we never knew about the poetry lesson in his class until we got the notice in the mail saying that his was chosen.

so you see, his failed poem won the prize.

he could have silently carried that "epic fail" with him for years. he possibly may have never attempted to write again. i am so thankful that this opportunity happened. it taught him lessons that he may not even realize right now, but has hopefully planted seeds. speak the truth. trust your gut. and that it's ok to question authority because authority is not always right. adults are not always right. that sometimes, many times, he's gonna have to stick to his guns... and this needs to be reinforced by people other than us. because we are: just the parents.




so Robert Pinsky buddying up to him, treating him like a peer, and congratulating him meant 10x any praise from us could ever have done. mr. pinsky even went so far as to give a shout out from stage "--how about that Francis Nyssen and that fabulous poem?" and the audience just ate him up. after-wards we watched as a very calm and collected francis was approached by very passionate patrons of the arts, just singing his praises and wanting his autograph. that self-esteem boost alone, i hope, will carry him through some tough times at school. he doesn't make friends easily, and doesn't have many.

he may never write another poem, but he got to see first-hand how our talent and creativity moves people in a positive way, and i hope that is something that he will want to be a part of, in any form. he may not understand that about me yet. my words of praise may get drowned out by my "no, you can't have a sleepover"s, and "no, you can't play more videogames"...and all my daily annoyances.

i have small, fleeting moments of encouragement.
he will go from not wanting to have anything to do with me, bored by my questions, or even by my mere presence, to inexplicably, quietly, holding my hand.

and that is a ray of sunshine on a gloomy day.