Ewte Talk

Max and I are eating lunch and he’s staring past my shoulder, intent on a fixed point on the wall behind me, chewing. What is it? What’s in that little mind of his? He’s so much like me, I am finding out. It’s odd, to see a young boy who looks not much at all like me, act in ways very similar to my own, and to know perhaps those ways are driven by genes I harbor in my own bones, ways manifest daily in the habits I exhibit, the temperament I display.

“On the bus, Ethan Waple sometimes tells Chris that he will sit next to him tomorrow,” Max begins, “but then Ethan Waple forgets and sits next to me instead,” he says with a huge satisfied grin.

Ahh. Ethan Waple. My son’s one consistent obsession. This is just like me, to have obsessions, though mine ebb and flow. I suppose his do, too. He’d be talking Nintendo DS if it weren’t for the tragic demise of both the boys’ machines from grappling over who was to play with them when.

Obessions are good, but I want to teach him how to keep them in balance, or is that an oxymoron? Maybe I might teach him how to take breaks from your obsessions, or where to put them so that the rest of you can breathe with a certain dignity on occasion.

Obsessions get you places, but they can trap you into thinking some days that there is no other boy to love other than beautiful Ethan Waple. And, don’t we all know, as beautiful and captivating as Ethan is, and as much as I adore his mother, it’s wise to have your eggs in several baskets. More than one basket can broaden your world.

But that is love, and love is an obstinate obsession, wholly mute to suggestion. Work is another, and one that we all fall captive to. I used to walk around proud to fall under the Judeo-Christian work ethic: nose to the grindstone. I still do, but sometimes after a particularly hectic period I am left wondering if it wouldn’t be wise in life to slow one’s pace enough to discern the huge underworld of subtlety that underlies all things. It can only be heard in an exquisite quiet that comes when we slow and allow ourselves to pay attention. When our lives are loud, brisk, frenetic, how unlikely it is that we find ourselves face-to-face with that which is subtle and fine and essential. We pass it by a hundred times completely unaware, a world unknown to us though necessary.

But none of this isn’t to say that it isn’t also necessary to sink your teeth into your passions, your obsessions. They give you purpose. Hopefully they also at the same time don’t rob you of it.

And, oh, to be in love.

“Mom?” my son then said to me, his focus now suddenly shifting onto me.

“Yes, love.”

“Guess who sat next to me at Art.”

“Ethan Waple?”

“You are right,” he smiled, “And, Mom?”

“Hmm.”

“When can Ethan Waple come to our house?”

“Let’s call his mom and see.”

“I’ll go get the phone book for you.”

So Max is telling me, “You know, Mom, I just love cats.”

“Of course.”

“Because they’re my favorite animal, you know.”

“Certainly they are.”

“And you know Ethan Waple loves cats too, but not as much as me I think.”

“I would expect he wouldn’t.”

“And he doesn’t have any cats, of course, because his dad is allergic to animal fur.”

“Oh?”

“Yea. He’s allergic to lions.”

“Lions?”

“Yea. Lions, but not rhinoceroses.”

“Oh no? Why not rhinoceroses?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“Is it because they’re bald?” I ask him.

“Oh, yea. That’s why. They’re bald.”

Every single night of his life since he’s acquired sufficient language to do so, my son Max has asked for his bedtime back scratch. Most nights he gets one. Presently he asks in this fashion:

“Back scratch?” to which I will reply in the affirmative and our ritual begins.

The boy wriggles his shirt up to his arm pits, I sprawl along the length of his bed and we two laze in the glow coming in from the hallway light. I know Quinn is next door intent on his reading and my husband is no doubt on the computer. Sometimes Kitten is curled up near the foot of Max’s bed.

Very often, over these years, over these hundreds of back rubs, I have recalled the times my own father gave my sister and I each a back scratch before we fell asleep when we were small. He would sing Danny Boy to us and rotate between our twin beds, giving each a short scratch, to which inevitably the other would complain that her sister got a bit more time. Sometimes I remember my father being game and going back to even us out, giving us each another bit of a gentle massage. It was so golden because I don’t remember so much in the way of touch otherwise growing up or since, though I’m sure there must have been. Nothing stands out the way those brief moments do which were purely about touch.

My son Max loves this time that we share. It is quiet and soothing for him, meditative for me. Tonight I felt close to him and I wanted to express how I felt, so I did.
“Maxie,” I said to him, “You know what, honey? I love you.”

“Mom,” he told me in a perturbed voice, “You tell me that too many times.” This did not shock me. This has become our way.

“I do?” I said, “Oh. Yes. I guess I do.” And I thought for a moment. “Why don’t you like me to say that?”

“I don’t like you to say that because you say it too many times.” he answered. This told me nothing of course, but I wasn’t exactly looking for an answer per se. More I just wanted to chat.

“I see. I’ll try not to say it so much. It’s just sometimes I have these feelings of love,” I explained, “and sometimes I just want to tell you about them.”

“I said I wouldn’t like it very much if you did.”

“Oh yes. Very much, you wouldn’t like it. You told me. Definitely.” Right-o.

Our back scratch eventually came to an end and I tucked him in, said goodnight, climbed down the ladder of the bunk bed. Next door the lights were already off in Quinn’s room which never is the case. He must have been tired. He’ll read all night if you let him. I stuck my hand up onto his mattress and whispered, “Goodnight sweetheart. I love you.”

“I love you, too, Mom.”

Quinn will lay there through a back scratch, enjoying it, but pop up immediately when I say I’m finished so that he can begin reading again. He has no qualms with my “I love you’s”. Sometimes I see these two as night and day.

I wandered down the hall. Bill was still on the computer, on the phone: work, so late. I retired to my room with the cat who curled up next to me waiting to be scratched just so behind the ears.