"Btw, are you alive?"
Yesterday, Sunday, getting ourselves organized for the coming week, Seth and I were discussing meals and cooking duties when he surprised me by saying, "Mother. You know I don't like shrimp. I've never liked shrimp."
"What?!"
I distinctly remember dinner one night when he was a baby sitting on my lap. While I was distracted, tending to his brother, Seth quietly ate every shrimp off my plate, without disturbing any of the rest of the meal—all the pine nuts out of my salad, too. I was nursing and constantly starving to death, so I was torn between disappointment about my meal and amazement as his fine motor skills.
"At one time, you did like shrimp."
"I was a baby. I didn't know any better."
We chuckled, and I told him about one of my former students who, on her graduation morning, was already stressed out when her father offered her some orange juice. She burst into tears. "Daddy! How could you! I hate orange juice! I've always hated orange juice. You don't even know me!"
Of course we had a good laugh about that story, too.
Even rested and alert, I probably would not have remembered about the shrimp, but I was especially tired. It had been a long, happily busy week—minimal music, maximal lectures! One of my favorite writers, environmental historian William Cronon, was on campus for a lecture series.
Three years ago, during the spring of his sophomore year when he was just about ready to settle on Environmental Studies for his major, Eli sent me an article by Cronon, "A Place for Stories: Nature, History, and Narrative." I didn't get around to reading it until later in the summer, but, five pages in, I was hooked. I read through it twice, and have re-read it every summer since.
I was impressed with the elegant structure of the piece and the grace of his writing style. I've read enough academic texts to know that excellent researchers and thinkers are sometimes merely adequate writers. But I especially loved that piece because it opened a whole world, a whole field of study I only vaguely knew about. It was clear that if I had gone to a different university or had been born ten years later, I might have taken a different path—and even though I missed that opportunity, I was relieved and delighted to know that world was thriving and filled with engaging and engaged thinkers.
So. When we were first making arrangements for Cronon's visit, I was naturally so excited I could hardly stand it. Seth more than once dryly commented that I am "quite the little fangirl." He was fairly certain I would embarrass myself, but I think I did an admirable job not completely freaking the heck out. I didn't squeal. Not even once. Except inside my own head.
After that first lecture, I was on fire with questions and ideas, which calmed me enough to realize why that essay was so moving—beyond the fact that it is so excellent. Typically when I realize that my children have seen me as an individual, and not just as The Mama, it's because I've failed them in some way. It is the stereotype, after all, that recognizing that our parents are "human" means that we see their faults. And, in fact, when he sent me the essay, his email read: "I think you might like this article. Btw, are you alive? I haven't heard from you recently." I was not very good at being the helicopter parent that the popular media at that time insisted was so common. I was comfortable letting Eli have his own space and experience college on his own terms. It didn't occur to me that he might, oh, I don't know, want to talk with me more frequently.
What was so moving, then, was not only that he reached out to see how I was, but also that he sent that piece. He knew me, recognized something essential about me, my interests. He didn't just recognize me as a human who sometimes fails, but as a particular individual. And that marked a shift in our relationship. We began to interact as adults instead of simply as parent and child.
To love deeply is to know and desire to know and be known, to see and delight in our beloved. But sometimes our attention lapses, and we forget about shrimp or orange juice, and our forgetting can amuse or seem a small betrayal: You don't even know me! So we play a kind of peek-a-boo or hide-and-seek. And if we are very fortunate, we have time to reflect on those moments of being seen or found, and the narrative shifts with our new understanding, and we pile up these stories for as long as we are privileged to share them.
"What?!"
I distinctly remember dinner one night when he was a baby sitting on my lap. While I was distracted, tending to his brother, Seth quietly ate every shrimp off my plate, without disturbing any of the rest of the meal—all the pine nuts out of my salad, too. I was nursing and constantly starving to death, so I was torn between disappointment about my meal and amazement as his fine motor skills.
"At one time, you did like shrimp."
"I was a baby. I didn't know any better."
We chuckled, and I told him about one of my former students who, on her graduation morning, was already stressed out when her father offered her some orange juice. She burst into tears. "Daddy! How could you! I hate orange juice! I've always hated orange juice. You don't even know me!"
Of course we had a good laugh about that story, too.
Even rested and alert, I probably would not have remembered about the shrimp, but I was especially tired. It had been a long, happily busy week—minimal music, maximal lectures! One of my favorite writers, environmental historian William Cronon, was on campus for a lecture series.
Three years ago, during the spring of his sophomore year when he was just about ready to settle on Environmental Studies for his major, Eli sent me an article by Cronon, "A Place for Stories: Nature, History, and Narrative." I didn't get around to reading it until later in the summer, but, five pages in, I was hooked. I read through it twice, and have re-read it every summer since.
I was impressed with the elegant structure of the piece and the grace of his writing style. I've read enough academic texts to know that excellent researchers and thinkers are sometimes merely adequate writers. But I especially loved that piece because it opened a whole world, a whole field of study I only vaguely knew about. It was clear that if I had gone to a different university or had been born ten years later, I might have taken a different path—and even though I missed that opportunity, I was relieved and delighted to know that world was thriving and filled with engaging and engaged thinkers.
So. When we were first making arrangements for Cronon's visit, I was naturally so excited I could hardly stand it. Seth more than once dryly commented that I am "quite the little fangirl." He was fairly certain I would embarrass myself, but I think I did an admirable job not completely freaking the heck out. I didn't squeal. Not even once. Except inside my own head.
After that first lecture, I was on fire with questions and ideas, which calmed me enough to realize why that essay was so moving—beyond the fact that it is so excellent. Typically when I realize that my children have seen me as an individual, and not just as The Mama, it's because I've failed them in some way. It is the stereotype, after all, that recognizing that our parents are "human" means that we see their faults. And, in fact, when he sent me the essay, his email read: "I think you might like this article. Btw, are you alive? I haven't heard from you recently." I was not very good at being the helicopter parent that the popular media at that time insisted was so common. I was comfortable letting Eli have his own space and experience college on his own terms. It didn't occur to me that he might, oh, I don't know, want to talk with me more frequently.
What was so moving, then, was not only that he reached out to see how I was, but also that he sent that piece. He knew me, recognized something essential about me, my interests. He didn't just recognize me as a human who sometimes fails, but as a particular individual. And that marked a shift in our relationship. We began to interact as adults instead of simply as parent and child.
To love deeply is to know and desire to know and be known, to see and delight in our beloved. But sometimes our attention lapses, and we forget about shrimp or orange juice, and our forgetting can amuse or seem a small betrayal: You don't even know me! So we play a kind of peek-a-boo or hide-and-seek. And if we are very fortunate, we have time to reflect on those moments of being seen or found, and the narrative shifts with our new understanding, and we pile up these stories for as long as we are privileged to share them.
Nicole, that was lovely!
ReplyDelete