Advertisement
Published: April 7th 2010
Edit Blog Post
Last month, I had a conversation with friends where it was jokingly suggested that young children, adorable packages that they are, rarely have anything enlightening to say. We laughed at this good-naturedly since the more truthful among us admit that aside from the sweet whispered confidences, the sticky-fingered confessions, and the occasional outbursts of childish wisdom, there is a lot of ning-nang-nong and the-cows-go-bong that goes on during the course of a day. On the spot, I decided to keep track of anything impressive that my four-year-old grandson had to tell me.
My lessons started the very next day.
"Don't walk on the grass," I say to Gabriel, on the way to the park.
"Why?" he asks.
"Because your sneakers will get wet."
"So what?" He isn't being saucy. He honestly wants to know.
I think this over and realize that, of course, he is right. If I had my way, his sneakers would stay clean and dry, but he would have missed the mushy pleasure of the earth beneath his feet and the sweep of wet grass against his ankles.
It's a small thing, really, but with larger repercussions. At the end of her life, my favourite humourist, Erma Bombeck, compiled a list of some of the things she would had done differently. For instance, she wished she had sat on the grass more often, even wearing white pants. She wished she had enjoyed the fireplace in the living room, not caring about the build-up of ashes in the grate. And she wished that she had taken more car rides with the top down, not minding if the wind mussed up her hair.
Lesson two arrives a couple of blocks later. By this time, we are plugged into a shared iPod, boogying to the beat of Mariposa Ole.
"Can we trade earphones, Grammy?" says Gabriel, suddenly.
"Sure," I say, unscrewing mine from my ear where it hadn't felt comfortable, anyway.
"I like this one best," he confides, showing me the tiny letter 'R' beside the plastic suction cup that goes into the right ear canal. This is news to me, but it makes perfect sense.
"Good for you," I say, "knowing your right from your left."
He turns and looks up at me with a very serious expression.
"I like the 'R' because it comes in the middle of my name."
We head for home then, the aroma of cherry blossoms all around us, he with the 'R' from the middle of his name, and me, with my music tucked tightly inside my ear.
"Do you know the difference between a dolphin and a porpoise?"
Now, a week later, we are sitting on the beach, dribbling sand onto a structure that roughly resembles a Mayan ruin. The air is still and the afternoon sun casts elongated shadows across the shore. Gabriel presses seashells onto crumbling mounds of sand and watches the tide erode the contours of his moat. He leans closer to me, as if to reveal a great secret.
"Dolphins' teeth are shaped like cones and porpoise teeth are flat."
I record this bit of information listlessly. I have been anticipating pearls of wisdom for days now, but the conversation has not progressed much past dinosaur facts and froot loops. I'm not bored exactly, just waiting to be impressed. "You are one smart cookie," I tell him.
The sand structure topples, and we laugh.
The moment comes later, when I least expect it.
We are crowded around the table, at a lunch cobbled together of leftovers. Gabriel is moving pieces of pizza around on his plate, and the rest of us are scooping up guacamole with the requisite tortilla chips.
"When I'm five, I'm going to kindergarten," he announces.
"That's nice," I say absentmindedly, holding out a slice of watermelon.
He crushes the melon with the back of his fork, spraying juice onto the table. "And then," he says, pausing for effect, "I won't be seeing any of you again."
Four adult faces turn in his direction. He says this with such dismissiveness that we don't know whether to laugh or weep.
"Really," says his dad, making it sound like a statement, not a question.
"Yup," Gabriel says, pursing his lips into a little pout. "When David G. went to kindergarten, no one in my nursery school ever saw him again." He speaks calmly, unaware that we are hanging onto every word.
The usual clarifications follow, to which he pays scant attention. He picks up a crayon and gets busy with a piece of paper. He is far more interested in learning how to print his name, a skill he imagines he'll need when he's out on his own.
Finally, I have the gem I am looking for. It is not the precocious utterance I expected, but a deep, true glimpse into the character of my grandson. This small boy (who sleeps with a night-light and a pillow called Babou) has the absolute certainty that whatever the future has in store for him at the far-off age of five, he can handle. He has no reason to think that life, which has treated him fairly up to this point, should ever be otherwise. The purity of this belief takes my breath away.
I look at Gabriel, bent over his letters. He is working on the rigorous 'M', and preparing to climb mountains, and on the intrepid 'W', shaped like a double plunge into the sea.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.21s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 22; qc: 99; dbt: 0.1687s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
isme
non-member comment
children and their wisdom
Amazing!! Children are amazing and they do utter little pearls of wisdom. Their way of thinking is so unique and it is sometimes difficult for us to understand what they actually mean or how they are thinking. Where are you? In Canada? Lots of love Dovi and Isme. When are you planning a visit to Israel? It is Jacob's Ladder Music Festival at the beginning of May. Maybe you would like to join us?