Ewte Talk

May 20, 2007

&amp;amp;quot;Mom.&amp;amp;quot;

Filed under: Family — Stephanie @ 10:56 am

“Mom.”

“Yes?”

“Mom, do you know what I found yesterday?”

“No, what?”

“Mom.”

“What Max?”

“Well, yesterday I was outside and you would not believe it. I saw a bee even bigger than this!” He holds up his hands to show. I look.

“Oh my goodness. That’s huge.”

“And mom?”

“Hmm.”

“Mom.”

“I’m listening.”

“Mom, I wasn’t scared of it because that kind won’t bother you.”

“You’re learning so many things about bees in class. You can teach me.”

“I know. And mom?”

“I’m right here.”

“Mom.”

“Max, you don’t have to keep saying my name. I’m right next to you. I can hear you.”

“Okay. Well, Mom, did you know that the queen bee lays 15,000 eggs every day?”

“Every day?” I’m skeptical. “Are you sure? Maybe it was ‘at a time’, meaning each time she lays her eggs. Do you think?”

“Well, maybe, but I’m not sure. But, yea, I think so, that’s it. Not everyday. That would be too many eggs, huh?”

“It would be quite a bunch. We’d have bees all over the place.”

“Oh Mom, that would be crazy.”

“Yea.”

“Mom.”

“Max.”

“Mom.”

“Max.”

“MOM!!”

“My name is Penelope all of a sudden.”

“MOM! Stop it!”

“Stop what?”

“Stop saying that. I’m trying to tell you something.”

“Join the club.”

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April 30, 2007

Obsession

Filed under: The Kids, Family — Stephanie @ 10:43 am

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.”

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November 22, 2006

Postmortem

Filed under: The Kids, Family, Bill — Stephanie @ 10:11 am

May 20, 2007

&amp;amp;amp;quot;Mom.&amp;amp;amp;quot;

April 30, 2007

Obsession

November 22, 2006

Postmortem

&amp;quot;Mom.&amp;quot;