Bittersweet Chocolate for Christmas

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Childhood is often described by adults as ideal. I cannot speak to this except to say perhaps they do not remember it clearly. Most of childhood involved the learning process that occurred after one got a skinned knee. Crawling did not get one where one wanted to go. Walking followed. Followed by falling. The world, one soon discovered, was not padded for one’s protection. Yet, we progressed onward, gaining a few calluses and coping techniques along the way that indicated our preferred method of problem solving, fight or flight.

Just as we became talking, walking, self sufficient individuals, the adults around us would pack us into a singular cage of similarly limited in accomplishment children and ask us to sit and stand on cue as we had never once done at home, for eight hours, five days a week.

Welcome to school, the real world. Surrounded by strangers that may or may not come to love us, who are indifferent to our success or failure, and who might eat our lunches, it was and remains for some of us, a time of trial we tried to forget. I concede, as a parent, I had forgotten.

Around six pm, my middle son, the one who is sly and clever and yet shockingly innocent, said very flatly, “I’ve had a bad day.” He had been picking on everyone since he got in the car but something in his voice said now was not the time to launch into a “If you treated your brother and sisters nicer…” type rant. “What’s up?”

He called me into the kitchen closet. It was a tad cramped and the quarters became less hospitable as three toddlers who knew this was where their two greatest treasures in life were, Mom and food, began trying to break down the door. I signaled we needed a better meeting space. Opening the door, the toddlers rushed in and I handed each of them a cookie and directed their oldest sister to put on a Christmas video. Her emotional antenna must have sensed something too, as she willingly complied and didn’t complain that she didn’t also merit a cookie. I brought him to my room and then to be doubly secure, I locked the door and sat against it.

“Two kids at school told me about where the presents come at Christmas. “ He looked at me and his face was holding the broken grief of childhood prematurely spoiled in one of the smallest of ways, but keenly felt nevertheless. My mom persona felt herself divided into three. The comforter wanted to hold and rock and sing and sooth. The sentimentalist wanted either to lie or to mourn the loss. The Klingon warrior wanted to hunt down those fools and their fool parents and flay them where they stood.

We talked about the real meaning of Christmas; about the miracle of the story that has been told and retold and retold and retold and how it continues to beguile and yet hold generation after generation. The story of Saint Nicholas has come to bring more people to Christ than could possibly be imagined by any of those who thought the story merely a slice of silly pop culture that pushed consumerism. We talked about how important it was to be wise with knowledge, and that the child that told him and others was neither kind nor wise, though he had the opportunity to be both.

My son picked up his new knowledge like a soldier. He let me hold him. I let him decide not to cry but that his eyes bothered him a bit. I told him, “Me too.” That was about all the time we had for a heart to heart before the toddlers, having burned through two more cookies each, decided it was time to find Mom again. My son gave me a brave smile and went out to talk to his younger brother about hanging stockings. He gave me a knowing look as his brother’s eyes lit up like sparklers. “Come on Johnny, we have to find everyone’s stockings!” he announced and the two were off on a brother treasure hunt Christmas style.

It was hard to make dinner now but I plowed through it. Everyone ate. The little ones got bathed and read to and tucked into bed. A song came on the radio, a Christmas song from the Polar Express, and suddenly, the very real feeling of the belief that had just evaporated hurt so hard for me, I felt angry for feeling this intense. My son had resolved the issue better than me I thought. I went upstairs to do the final check of lights out. My son was still up, sitting in the dark not crying. I rubbed his feet and he asked for extra hugs. Some of them felt like he was afraid to let go, for fear some other pillar of childhood might get kicked out from under him if he wasn’t careful.

“I talked to your father about what happened.”
“What did he say?”

“He said to tell you, “He still believes, and so should you.” The squeeze I got back was glorious. “I know what that really means Mom.” He said.

The euphoria of the moment was somewhat interrupted when I spied three drawings on the floor. My son is an artist, always making comic books. Here, graphically illustrated, Boba Fett and several Star Wars Jedi my untrained eyes could not identify, have locked two boys on the island of Misfit Toys. “You have spread bad stories about Santa Claus. Here you will stay and cause no more trouble.” While another jedi, possibly my son, stands by with a thought bubble “Heh heh heh.” The spotted elephant and Charlie the Clown don’t look very friendly to the prisoners. The King of the Toys growls at them.

Justice kid style. I feel better. “Can I keep these?” I ask.
“Sure Mom.”

One more strong squeeze.
“Merry Christmas Son.”

Forty-one and Awaiting Maturation

At my age, I’m supposed to be educated, sophisticated and worldly wise.
There is a stack of books that educated people are supposed to have read, important things like the complete works of Dickens and Shakespeare, The Ancient Art of War, Das Kapital, the Federalist papers and Moby Dick. I am waiting for retirement to get to this list, when not reading them will be chucked up to old age and poor eyesight.

Adults are also supposed to like things like coffee and wine, sushi and blue cheese not accompanied by super hot Buffalo wings and beer. They can watch documentaries on war and read the serious sections of the paper with total recall. They wear jeans and sneakers for gardening and football games only, and they don’t voluntarily choose to dine at places that wrap the food in paper. As I understand it, some of them even listen to and love opera.

I am waiting for those chemical enzymes to kick in and transform me from a fairy tale loving, French fry noshing comic book reading plebian into a character out of a Henry James novel; who coifs her hair and wears dark form fitting frocks and speaks in mysteriously compelling short phrases that bewilder and bewitch those around her as she passes through the heathers without stepping into a gopher hole.

It’s not that I haven’t tried to mature. I dutifully checked out Bleak House from the library and read a play each summer from Shakespeare. I keep ordering wine at restaurants but I never finish a glass. I know how to talk about tannins and the deepening flavors and all that, but what I really think when I drink wine is, why didn’t I order a diet coke? I have eaten sushi with friends who love it and survived, but can’t figure out why no one doesn’t just say, “Hey this is a great piece of fish, just give it five minutes in a pan with garlic and olive oil.” I think they’re just trying to avoid doing the pots and pans in the kitchen.

My sister has bought me CD’s of opera, explaining which pieces were her favorites. She has also taken me to drink my first Starbucks, I got a violent headache after three sips. I had a similar reaction to the opera. My husband buys tickets to the symphony. We go. He shuts his eyes to listen. If I shut my eyes, I snore. My music tastes haven’t ever left the early 80’s and high school.

I have taught myself to read the editorial section before I hit up the funnies and the sports, but it’s rather like sitting through math class in High School before lunch. I do it, but only because I ought, and much of the front section just rolls past my brain which is fixated on what happened today in “For Better or Worse.”

So here I am at 41 and I still want big parties on my birthday with wrapped presents and a frosted cake with all the candles. I know the Saturday morning line up my kids watch, and I sneak my TV viewing under the responsible adult headline of “Parental Supervision.” I change the channel if I don’t like the cartoon or its animation. I read comic books inside of real books like “Seven Habits of Highly Successful People” and wear jeans or shorts 350 days out of the year. I don’t own a form fitting frock and I talk in breathless longwinded excited loud sentences. It’s not that I don’t like wine, opera and all things sophisticated; they just aren’t my first preference.

Given the fact that much of my life is lived like a stone that just perpetually skips on the water (never slowing or stopping to sink below the surface), introspection is not one of my strong suits. It requires a quieter mind and spirit than my temperament allows. Yesterday, my son was invited to take a course on manners and etiquette, designed to teach freshmen of high school how to act like the adults they will some day become. As I looked at the requirements that the boys wear jackets and ties, and the girls, dresses and gloves I wondered if one day my kids would grow out of their childhood tastes. I’d be left to go to McDonald’s, watch Disney movies and listen to Duran Duran on my own.

But then I remember, my husband prefers burgers to fois gras, and chocolate shakes to champagne. The other day, he came home with tickets for a baseball game and proposed a camping trip for the 4th of July weekend. After dinner, he asked for ice cream. So I stopped by the bookstore today, and even though, the complete works of Evelyn Waugh were on sale near the front of the store, I picked up the latest Fantastic Four comic for him, and tonight, we’re going to see Kung Fu Panda. Maturity can wait, at least until it feels fun and not like an assignment to eat my broccoli.

I will say though, some of that opera isn’t so bad. Thanks sis.