If ever you need to shake off your inhibitions and take a course in the art of bold self expression, I suggest taking the public transit, BART. Talking to Once-self is a free course that is offered to all riders. Also selective hearing.
Traveling on BART gives you a unique experience. One only has to close one’s nose at times and one’s eyes at others, and the rest is there for the taking.
Soliloquizing is often frowned upon: One never knows when one is talking like an onion to a donkey.
One time, I was listening to a man telling me about a music concert he’d been to.
One of the bizarre things about this particular individual was it looked like he was talking to me. I mean addressing me. Pardon me if I have told you this before, but if you need to find me on the train, you would do well to look for a sharp-ish nose buried in her writing or reading and keeping to herself, after the dramatic entry at the last minute of course.
So, I was mildly puzzled and looked up. Tell me, he said, thundering, what should the boy do? Shall I help him?
I mean. I don’t know. It depends on the boy does it not? I am usually not the one who has been asked to share advice. I was rattled. Only none of the words came out. What managed to come out was a shrug. I looked around me completely bewildered, only to be confronted by equally puzzled faces that all seemed to share the same vague feeling that this gentleman had never physically been to the concert he was talking about, and better yet, the boy could have been the lead singer on the fictional band, or his young ward, it was hard to tie the story together. He however, had something that most marketing professionals and politicians would die for: he had the unique ability to make a train-car full of passengers feel like they were being addressed individually by him.
It was amusing and interesting.
But when folks shout at you and demand that you have a good new year and a merry christmas, it is hard to not smile. Even if you are scuttling away with a slightly alarmed expression on your face.
I have always loved reading Children’s books. There is something charming, and uplifting about them, a shining hope that we sometimes fumble with as we grow older. Even when the books deal with hard topics, even when they deal with hard concepts. Every time I feel jaded, there is nothing like a lovely children’s book to help me uncover the magic again.
One beautiful day in November, I dragged the children along on a walk. The fall season, and the recent rains had given way to unruly gardens, crisp fallen leaves for us to feel the crunch as we walked on, and little birds frequenting the place once more. On the road side, was a hedge trimmed to the shape of an oblong mushroom and the toddler son stopped in front of it and said, “Like the Curious Garden book right? This is how it was in Amma’s garden when she was a little girl.”
The daughter looked dubious. “How do you know it was like that in Amma’s garden when she was a little girl. You weren’t there remember?” The son looked hurt. It is true that he is often confused with time and does not understand why there were periods in our life before he was born, when he always remembered having her with him.
“I know! But Amma told me when she read the book, right Amma?”
“That’s right!” I said somewhat taken aback that he remembered what I had said in passing while looking at the pictures in the book a few days ago. It has since become a favorite book for both of us. We love cuddling up with the Curious Garden.
It is a heart warming story about a little boy named Liam who looks after some plants on a forgotten railroad track only to have the curious garden spread its influence all over the forgotten places in the city. The Curious Garden also inspires many amateur gardeners and the last page shows the transformation of a bleak, smog-laden city to a beautiful one with creepers and trees and hidden nooks of gardens by the time the boy grows to a man.
During Thanksgiving, the pre-school that the son goes to had an exercise asking the children what they are most thankful for. The notes were shaped like feathers and they were all posted on the notice board together in the shape of a turkey. I stopped to see what the children were thankful about. I must say it was all wonderful. Very few had capitalistic tones, which definitely warmed my heart.
The son’s feather-shaped note said he was thankful for Mom cuddling up with him and reading Curious Garden.
One morning, when the husband was away, the daughter sighed wistfully, as we piled into the car to get to her school on time, and said, “I miss Appa. I miss the action before going to school.”
“What do you mean?” I asked guardedly. This is the sort of conversation that will lead to promises involving television time, chocolates or extended bed-times, and drama about broken promises for things that should not have been promises at all in the first place.
“Well…you know how you get things ready the previous night and then we come in the morning and take everything and leave?”
“Yes…”
“Well..we’d never do that if Appa was around would we? We’d run, and you’d run and there is more, I don’t know, FUN!” said the daughter.
I could not deny this allegation.
School-going time is one packed with drama, hilarity, perplexity, action and yawns. Feathers ruffled at this time smoothen themselves out before we get to our various institutions and good humor and charm overtake the retelling of it in the evenings and the family hums along with its customary cheer once more.
We also have strange customs and rules such as ‘Check the rear-view mirror till the car gets to the main road.’ I have run after the car on several occasions looking like a windmill flailing my arms, waving the latest piece of homework, or some paper that is required to be handed in. It is very hard to do that. Windmills function beautifully because they don’t run.
One time, I was charging behind the snorting car, looking like a pumped up rhinoceres because the daughter forgot her shoes. Her SHOES! I ask you. She explained that she likes to relax in the car and put on her shoes, so she can chill at home. When I told my friends this, they didn’t bat an eyelid. They said they always have an extra pair of shoes in the car for just such emergencies.
The time when the check-rear-view mirror became a rule was on a particularly cold day in the Winter. The temperature gauge was mercilessly pointing at sub-zero and the daughter forgot her lunch-box. The house inside was toasty and warm, and I had forgotten how cold Californian winters could get. I charged after the car barefoot, running a sprint, with a lunch bag in my hand. My athletic coaches in high school always thought I performed best when I had a dog chasing me causing my heart to pump like it was powered by an industrial pump, but I wish to tell them that I perform pretty well when barefoot on sub-zero roads as well. The car, already late, was doing its best to keep the distance between us level. I was running and creating such a ruckus, some geese stopped their flight mid-air to see who the dickens was rivaling their squawking.
Luckily, the car’s merge into the main road was somewhat delayed because of the traffic and I managed to bang the car from behind and cause the husband to turn around. The sheepish daughter took her lunch box, had the sense to thank me for the food later that evening, and all was laughed at, but it is now a rule. Everyone has to look at the rear view mirror before going ANYwhere.
When the husband travels, I throw my lackadaisical side aside and step into the role of The Efficient Baxter. Since I am rarely the Efficient-Person, I do a sincere job at it when I do step up, and I cannot deny, it snuffs the joy out of the process.
With the husband back, The Efficient Baxter has taken a break again, and we scrambled most satisfactorily this morning. I threw a well-aimed jacket through the open car window as it left, and received a beaming smile and a Thumbs-Up from the occupants.
The husband is back from a fortnight-long business trip and the whole household sighed with relief, joy and exasperation when his smiling face greeted us.
That sigh of relief was mine.
Those whoops and shouts of joy that woke the neighbor’s cat and caused the squirrels to fall out of their trees was the children’s.
That exasperated sigh that was drowned in the cacophony was the Television’s. Anyone would be exasperated if they were rudely told that their quiet time had officially ended.
This time, the television had a break too during the husband’s trip. You see, I am hopeless at getting the various things to work – there is Netflix and Amazon and Xfinity and Roku and Google TV and Apple TV and You tube. I am vaguely aware that these are all different things, but like the daughter says, “Poor amma – she has lost the battle the moment she calls it ‘The Television’ instead of lovingly calling it a TV!”
With the Television out of the running race of entertainment options, other activities gallantly stepped in to fill the void. We had a marvelous time together: taking walks in the golden autumn sun while entertaining friends and family, making beautifully shaped dosas and pancakes, whipping up thanksgiving feasts just because, cutting and pasting paper, preparing for a science fair, decorating our christmas tree. We did everything except television-watching. Which is what the children missed the most (after their father of course). So, the first words to escape their mouths after the vociferous cries of welcome were yowled was, “Could you get Netflix going again? Amma tried and tried, but she just couldn’t.”
The husband shook his head looking shocked, “Do you mean to tell me, you spent two weeks including a long week-end without TV?”
“Yes…of course! But we had a nice time right?” I said smiling at the angels who came on walks dressed like Panda bears and impersonating hawks.
“Well…let’s put it this way! We had a good time because Amma was happy that ‘The Television’ was not working, so she made sure we did fun stuff.” said the daughter rolling her eyes, and quoting ‘The Television’ like she has seen many fine teenage heroines on Television do. The husband gave me a look that said, “To think a mother would put her children through this!”
As Netflix came to life, the children enveloped him in warm hugs and embraces and the husband looked pleased. He swelled as it isn’t everyday that he is made to realize what a true hero he is to them.
I turned to the toddler son and asked him, “Who should give you a bath today? Appa or Amma?”
I was already whistling up the stairs sounding like a milk cooker out of breath, a book neatly tucked under my arm, when he shouted his answer: “Appa!”
One November afternoon, the golden autumn sunshine was shining through the yellow, red and maroon leaves. The remaining birds in this fast-losing-its-suburbia-touch flitted about looking for worms and grains, squirrels darted past barely containing their curiosity for the creatures who took the time to wrap themselves up in woollen to take a walk. The dogs looked at us with a supercilious air and closer observation revealed that it was because of the new cardigans they were wearing. The squirrels thought them (the cardigans I mean) ridiculous and the dogs thought the squirrels underprivileged, not that they told me of course.
It was at this time that a hawk screeched loudly and attempted to land smoothly on the concrete walkway ahead of us. Some crows took flight in alarm, but the squirrels chittered amused and carried on with their observations of suburban life from the safe treetops. A baby panda came charging after the hawk and unable to stop careened into the hawk. There was a moment of terse anticipation and tension, but the hawk turned its head regally, surveyed the baby panda and hugged him.
“No…Panda. You have to slow down before landing, or you could crash, like you just did, and real hawks wont be as forgiving.” said the Hawk to the Panda.
I don’t know why, but we went for a walk that day with the son dressed in his fine Halloween Panda costume. It was about a month after Halloween. He attended a birthday party where the birthday boy wisely asked for a costume party, and the Halloween costumes got to air themselves again. I must say I enjoyed looking at princesses, iron men, spiderman, pandas and rabbits watching a charming magic show at the party. After the party, the streets were looking so beautiful that we decided to go for a walk.
“If he is coming as a Panda, I will use this,” (she said pointing to a wonderful Jaipuri shawl of mine), “as wings and be a bird.” said the daughter.
“What bird should I be, you little Panda?”
I did not know that Pandas liked Hawks, but apparently this one did. So, the Hawk taught the Panda to fly.
If an ornithologist were to observe us that day, I am sure he would have learnt surprising things. Which reminds me of this article where ornithologists studied Angry Birds to compare and contrast real bird behavior vs those in the game.
In Part 1 of the Halloween post, I had written about deciding on an Environment themed costume for Halloween for myself. I settled upon a Tree. We had a whole hour ahead of us to plan, execute and pull it off. I don’t know whether you have tried impersonating trees, it is very easy. You send your husband to buy something, say a car or some green cloth for the tree depending on your mood, get out a piece of cardboard and some green paint. You then set your children to cut and paint a tree-top and you sit back and you wonder how to pull off looking like a tree trunk and you are set. Ask some creative friend of yours to finish up the costume, stand back and project the spirituality of stolid trees. Like Booker. T. Washington said, “There is no power on Earth that can neutralize the influence of a high, simple and useful life.”
There is no power on Earth that can neutralize the influence of a high, simple and useful life. – Booker. T. Washington
Trees are wonderful and soothing. Their stoic presence, their sturdy silence and their useful practical lives should say it all. Setting aside the fact I cannot produce oxygen, or hold a sturdy silence, or be stoic, or useful, I could be a Tree. I need to stand rooted and sway a bit in the breeze. How hard can it be? I just have to be out and about for people on candy-highs on Halloween night to flock to me for some calm.
The Silent Spectator.
That went well. I only spent the whole evening explaining to all and sundry who I was. Have you tried impersonating a Tree? It is a spiritual experience in and of itself. It is not easy. For one. I don’t see Tree Costumes, so you cannot pick one up and pull it on. For another, it is dashed hard to hoist the top of a tree on a hat. It flops back and forth and does not stay sturdy. I am sure that plenty of people on Pinterest will tell you how to do it, but I can tell you how not to do it. Especially, if you try to work with a cowboy hat.
How to make a Tree Costume
So, with some excellent suggestions from my friends and children, we morphed it into a Tree Nymph whose express aim was to Save Trees. I tied the painted tree around my torso, wore brown pants so my legs would serve as the trunk and then wrapped my head with flowers to look like a Tree Nymph. I don’t know how Tree Nymphs look, but neither does the majority of the populace, so now they know. They look like me.
I must say I rather enjoyed myself. The son was Spiderman and the pair of us went around telling everyone that “Amma saves trees, and Son saves Humans”. When else could I have sported that Green nail polish the daughter and I picked up so we could have Rainbow themed nails?
Is this a Tree Nymph? If you haven’t seen one, then yes.
Say what you will about the rains that washed the Sun-dried California after Halloween, a small irrational part of me was happy. As a Tree-Nymph, had I invited the clouds over? It was certainly part of my original theme. The husband had even suggested I walk around with a large water droplet. But we did not have time to cut and color the water droplet. I sat relishing the sounds of the fresh patter of the rain, smelling the parched Earth drinking in the moisture, and enjoying a hot cup of tea in my hands.
“Next year, let’s all go environment themed. Maybe that will end the drought. If a Tree Nymph can bring rains, ….”, I crowed, and stepped out of my door to see an uprooted tree.
Usually, when Halloween rolls around, I am left out. What I mean is that I am the butler, the enabler, the inefficient decorator, the bad make-up doer, the scrambler, the chef, the doler of chocolates. But I am rarely one of the featuring stars in the evening’s show. When I say these things, I don’t want you running off with the idea of a pestilential sulker dulling Halloween. Far from it. I may decorate like a wet cracker, but there is one thing I bring to the evening – enthusiasm. One of my friends once said after witnessing a football game played by kindergartners that there was more enthusiasm than skill in the game. Exactly how I like to slot myself in the Halloween throng of emotions.
When I smile after hoisting a ghastly costume on folks, I smile widely, deeply and with affection. It gives the wearer confidence as they head out into the Halloween night. I like Halloween, for it is the one night when it is okay for serious minded adults who think of worldly problems to go out and publicly quack like ducks. It is often an illuminating experience to see that people give more attention to one’s quacks as a duck, than their most reasoned and logical arguments. It is all good – imagine if the Hippoceres lightened up.
What?! Don’t listen to me now! I am just Quacking!
If you like Halloween so much, why is it you don’t make more of an effort to dress up yourself? You ask. My answer drips in selfless service. There is usually a gaggle of folk around me needing attention – the costumes have to be just so and the food needs to be just so-so, the parents or parents-in-law have to be convinced to loosen up for Halloween and there it is. By the time the vampires, fairies and super-heroes come laden with plastic pumpkins, I have barely had time to lay the dinner on the table and grab a devil-hairband bought years ago, and smile (I have been accused of being the friendliest devil known to mankind, thereby failing spectacularly in even the simplest of costumes.)
This time, Halloween was on a Saturday and I had more time and energy on my hands. I started planning a whole two hours ahead that I wanted to be something too. Not just that. I was the decisive force: I wanted my costume to be Environment Themed. In what I thought was a brilliant teachable moment, I said that if we don’t save the environment, we won’t need Halloween Decorations at all, since the macabre stuff we see as Halloween Decorations, would be the sorry state of Earth.
The husband gave me a shocked, dismal look. The meaning of that look needs a much stronger pen than my own to record. I realized that far from a Teaching Moment, it could well become a Traumatic Moment, and swiftly swerved the conv. towards suggestions.
That did the trick. Ask us to talk and give suggestions, we trip over one another. There was a lot of shouting and a few good suggestions.
We need Water, Save Water, Less Plastic, More running water: (rivers, brooks), Recycle better, Anti Deforestation, More Trees, Drop of Water, Become a Cloud, No Toys (The toddler son came up with this and said proudly that he did not want to play with his toys anymore, and that I could give them all away, and not buy anymore. The pride on his face I tell you! It would have been a lot more virtuous if he had remembered that at the Lego Store the next day). The daughter said that I should crusade against oil spills since they harm animals, why not a Clean Ocean-Reef? Or Be a Farm.
An Ocean Reef – How in the name of Willow’s Marina Reefs can this be made into a Halloween Costume in an hour?
There was a lunar eclipse and a red moon a few weeks ago. The world watched the rare phenomenon and so did we. I remember seeing the Halley’s Comet about three decades ago, using the School telescope. The telescope was set up in our neighbor’s garden. There is a secret excitement and a strange lesson in mortality when looking at a comet that comes once in 75-76 years.That, by itself, was sensational enough for us to brave the cold nights to see the comet. The newspapers had been our source of knowledge and I think the news on state television made a statement too, but that was all.The rest of the buzz we created. I remember a lot of intent gazing and saying “Watdidocee?Isthatit?WOW!”
Now, I am tripping all over the internet over viewing pieces of it remnants : The Orionid Meteor Shower: Leftovers of Halley’s Comet
I can’t but help compare and contrast how we would have viewed it today’s times. Just as spottily is my guess, though we would have the pleasure of seeing the recording taken by somebody immensely more skilled at these things than myself.
We set about viewing the eclipse in our customary fashion. That is to say, we made a complete muck of things: hashed a pig or two in the duck pen and squashed a rat.
The husband stood at the kitchen island, with a seriousand urgent expression on his face. The daughter strolled in and said, “Oh – he must be playing chess!”
The affronted husband puffed out his chest and told her not to say trivial things like that. “I am, in fact, checking out a very important scientific phenomena that we can see in the skies today. “
The daughter, suitably chastened, went near him and cried, “He is on Facebook!”
I laughed.
“Yes, but checking to see whether the lunar eclipse started, not, you know, just face-booking.” he finished somewhat lamely.
The toddler son, flying his toy plane, and attempting a lunar landing, then explained the lunar eclipse to us: Moons can be red, blue or white (Is it American? No Everyone can see the moon when it is blue, red or white) and hide in the sun (Won’t it burn? No. Because Shadows are not hot.)
“So, why can’t you go out and check if the lunar eclipse started?” I asked. “After all, if people were saying so on Facebook, they must have done the same thing.”
This struck the children as sound logic, and they ran outside to see what was going on. They caught glimpses of a red moon and they charged in with the sensational news. The son ran into the house, taking his bass decibel levels to an excited high and the daughter came, tripping over her shoes as she took them off. I was, as is usual, in the evening, flopping about the kitchen looking efficient and determined. The urgent appeals from the whole family made me set dinner aside for the moment:
Just switch off the dinner. We can come back and eat.
Come fast. Now.
It takes a long time to cook. You are always cooking dinner.
I likes dinner.
They hustled me out of the house and we stood outside in a sort of anti-climax. The clouds, usually welcomed in the Bay area skies, were having a tough time figuring out why people were standing outside and grimacing at them like that. Hadn’t these very people been pandering for rain, and putting up mugshots of what clouds look like to make sure the populace did not forget? Now when the clouds did come and flit across the evening sky, there was animosity. Did they think moons brought rains? No. Clouds did. Very confusing for the cloud-body.
By now, of course, the husband had to take matters in his hand. He sprinted out to the street and then said we’d get a better view from the end of our street, so off we went leaving the door ajar. The husband, looking like an Admiral General in shorts,was directing his troops to better viewing positions. The children dutifully ran after him. He turned to bellow out further instructions, only to find his faithful wife running in the opposite direction. It is enough to rattle any Admiral. One cannot determine strategic spots with the errant soldier retreating. He stopped and the children skidded into him and they all bellowed at the recalcitrant soldier.
lunar_eclipse_viewing
The problem was, there had been a spate of robberies of late, and I was loathe to leaving the door open. So, I doubled back to lock up, while the rest of the family ran. Questions, explanations, eye-rolls and lectures on how-to-live-in-the-moment and not miss lunar eclipses were happening when the daughter yelled – ‘There! There is the moon.” The mutinous Admiral and the penitent trooper, both abandoned earthly worries for the moment and gazed sky-ward to see the moon disappear once again.
The husband tried to take a picture with the phone, “There are far better photographs that are going to be shared at the end of the eclipse, why bother now?”, I said, like it was going to make a difference.
Picture taken by us
We gazed again only to find a twig obstructing our view of the clouds. The husband charged homeward saying he’d bring us the car, so we could all pile in and get a clearer view. I tried telling him that a better view can only be had above the clouds, but he had gone. He ran and I ran after him with the house keys,and we met each other mid-street (In case you thought the children missed this piece of action, they did not.The toddler thought we were playing, and ran after me. The daughter, tasked with looking after her little brother, ran after him.)Within minutes of this rhino-charge, the car came, with the husband panting in the driver seat and we jumped in and headed out to a open parking lot.
I don’t know whether you have observed children playing in the park. They run up and then they run down, they run left and they right. All with no apparent purpose. So do the child-like. After about 15 minutes of running this way and that, there was some heavy breathing, more useless photographs, and a state of dejection.
If aliens used this time to observe life on earth, I am afraid to say the news they carry back to their homing civilization cannot be a promising one. A lot of pointless running, needless pointing later, we decided to just head back home.
We entered our community when the clouds cleared again. Swearing loudly, off we leaped from the car, and charged out to see the eclipse. We saw a knot of our neighbors standing to view the eclipse too. They had, in their usual wise manner, skipped the drama and simply came out of their homes and raised their eyes.
This was the picture the internet showed us the next day:
We are enjoying Wind in the Willows sort of days of late. Every so often, I crave for some comfort reading and fall back on Children’s story books. The Wind in the Willows is one such. I still remember my best friend walking up to the front of the assembly and saying nervously, “The Wind in the Willows By Kenneth Grahame. The Mole had been working hard all morning spring cleaning his home …” She had me sit in the first row so she could look at me for moral support, and I gladly obliged. She had brushed her wavy hair neatly parted at the side, and her nervousness was evident in the small shake in her voice. She looked at me and smiled nervously and I gave her a large blooming-flower-kind of smile that encouraged her to go on and she carried on heartened. She finished her recitation to much applause, and collapsed on the chair next to me, and I assured her that she had been marvelous.
When I read snippets of the book on the train, I thought of her again and all the sunny balmy days of childhood play in the warm sun and pouring rain came back to me. Folks looked at me like I need to have my head examined, I grinned disarmingly at them. After all, Grahame described The Wind in the Reeds (the working title till it became Wind in the Willows) as:
“A book of youth, and so perhaps chiefly for youth and those who still keep the spirit of youth alive in them; of life, sunshine, running water, woodlands, dusty roads, winter firesides, free of problems, clear of the clash of the sex, of life as it might fairly be supposed to be regarded by some of the wise, small things that ‘glide in grasses and rubble of woody wreck’.”
The Wind in the Willows
There is something deeply alluring about animal stories. I love to imagine them talking to each other, helping one another in times of trouble and having their little adventures. I was similarly happy when I read another passage on Dolphins and Humans in the Cosmic Connection by Carl Sagan. These helpful animals probably crave a little intellectual stimulation and have often been friends to humans, and yet we have shown them time and again how heartless we are by going after them.
Carl Sagan writes of Elvar the Dolphin, who he had the pleasure of meeting during one of his visits to his friend, John Lilly. John Lilly was an admirable scientist who was involved in several researches, Dolphins being one of them. Lilly introduced Elvar-the-Dolphin to Sagan-the-Human, and seeing that they were getting along, let them to it. Sagan and Elvar came into playing a sort of game, and after being splashed thoroughly by Elvar thrice, Sagan refused to play a fourth time.
Elvar surveyed the standoff for several minutes and swam up to Sagan up and said in a squeaky tone of voice, “More!”.
Carl Sagan, justifiably flustered, came running to his friend and said he might have heard a dolphin say the word, “More”.
To which his friend asked him, “Was it in context?”
“Yes! “, spluttered the poor physicist, to which the neuro-scientist smiled and said that it was one of the 50 odd words he knew.
In all these years, we have yet to pick up one word of Dolphinese and yet, we boast about being knowledgable and go to no end to display our arrogance to Mother Nature.
Why are we so quick so assume that a place like this will not be rife with little joys and strifes? Doodling by the Daughter
If we are so intent about looking for extra terrestrial life, maybe we should stop and let our own ecosystems thrive.
I am reminded of what William James said, about letting Nature teach us as she ought:
“It is to be hoped that we have some friend, perhaps more young than old, whose soul is of this sky-blue tint, whose affinities are rather with flowers and birds and all enchanting innocencies, than with dark human passions, who can think of no ill of man.“
The toddler son has always been a little preoccupied with Time. He buzzes around asking me the time every so often. Initially, of course, I did the square thing and checked the watch and told him. Soon, I realized that I could check the refrigerator, count my tomatoes, and just blurt out an approximate time. Then, I realized that he did not need the approximate time either – he just needed a number. (I tried time-to-sleep, and time-to-eat, but he did not accept that answer. He did, however, accept 14 o’clock, 14:52 – but not 14.)
The little fellow, like most children, is a question-machine. He asks why there is no half sun, why the dinosaurs died, how he came back to life to spend the day with Danny, why the flowers dried, why his sister came to the World earlier than him. What is dish – (You can eat a dish and put mammum (food) in a dish?), how to see if water reached a particular spot in the water-hose, what is before zero, how do tree roots drink water (Thank goodness, my biology teacher was not there to hear my answer.)
Dinosaurs can come back?
Sometimes, I give him an answer that is in essence correct, but otherwise useless. Like the time he asked me how to make water. (You take two hydrogen atoms, combine it with an oxygen atom and you will get water.) He looked at me puzzled and drank his water. So, I am drinking three water, but there is only one water? I never learn I tell you. After that rash answer, I spent a few trying minutes laying bare my ignorance in Chemistry for all to see.
One time, at the end of a 16-hour long day, we lay there savoring a children’s book together. I told him that it was his sister’s favorite book when she was a baby and he lapped it up. At the end of it, we both sighed contentedly and I told him it was time to sleep. That was when he crinkled his brow, and asked me what is Time. I must have looked perplexed for he went on: “You rember when I was eating applejacks cereal in the morning, you said Time is going? I want to go yesterday.”
If I wasn’t lying down, I would have gone. I am guilty of hustling the fellow when he is relishing his ‘applejacks cereals’ over breakfast, but mornings are a bit rushed in the household and my train won’t wait.
He looked serious and a bit frustrated to see that I had not grasped his simple question. “I want to go yesterday!” he repeated slowly and a bit louder than before. I know that on his timeline things that happened a decade ago qualify as yesterday, so I asked him why he wanted to go to Yesterday.
His answer to that was simple enough. He wanted to see his sister as a baby. I had to dash the fellow’s hopes. There were photographs I could show him, stories I could tell him of her babyhood, but no, he could not go back in time.
Then, he asked me why time only goes forwards and not backwards.
This is when you see me mop my brow. I tell you, I am no physicist. His questions are steadily chipping at whatever Science I have managed to grasp over the years, despite my teachers’ best intentions.
What? How? Why?
I barely understand time now. It is ethereal, and deceptive. I feel like I am spending enough time during the day enjoying the present, yet, here we are already confusing the Fall season with the sunshine that is Summer’s trademark. I seem to remember helping the fellow take his first steps and now here he is asking me for explanations that are dubious at best. If every day does not seem to fleet past, why do the years flit by?
How come I forget the name of the person I met yesterday, but remember the names of my friends from when I was 5 years old?
Nourish-n-Cherish 