Vintage Seven Two Point O

This is what I overheard. My son was on the phone with his uncle, updating him on a situation I was already informed about after school...

So you know how I told you I was going to tell Chelsea I love her? ... Well I did and guess what? She-she-she gave me a note with-a-heart-on-it yeah, yeah and it said I love you-and it had her phone number...Me, duh! I'm like dancing right now.

And he was, he was dancing while on the phone and was still dancing when he called his father immediately after to repeat the same.

Then he applied himself to make a note of his own, which stated, Chelsea, I love you too, Love me. And then had his phone number; read: my cell number.

Then he drew a heart and t hen a picture of two little aliens, well actually intended them to be kids, but given his drawing technique and poor fine motor skill, they looked like aliens holding hands. Heading said "you and me". Then he said, triumphant, "the picture really makes it like...a total love note."

Then he did one more happy dance. And said, "my first real girlfriend, can you believe it?"

And later at night he welled up again. He's been crying at nights, getting emotional over things he thinks and thinks about, some of which we discuss. Earlier this September it was massive growing pains, wanting to go back to first grade and being terrified of his challenges in school (he's still writing slowly and is just now getting to write legibly; the confidence is shaky at best) and the new Terrifying Teacher. And of course, Chelsea. But there was and is this other thing, like a sense of danger or precariousness that I can't quite pin down. A recent instance was when he asked me about whether the apartment was safe or we could get attacked by burglers like he saw on the news. Then he asked to call his dad about that little panic. Today he asked that we say a prayer--we did, it consists of him silently asking for stuff and then saying his Our Father out loud and me just reveling in the way his voice is getting thicker like a boy who just ate a baby though, something my mind calls baby raspy depth of voice, and can wrap around Lead Us Not Into Temptation. But he was clearly worried and then he said, again, almost in tears, or asked rather: "if something happened to you, you would call me right? like you would wake me up?"

It occurs to me that again, you can't forget, they are intuitive sponge-like little souls, they pick up the nuances and the subtleties of the space of the time, of the unsaid. So much so much is communicated to children through channels that are children-only access channels. I remember that clearly from my childhood but never keep it in mind enough, which I gather is a Universal Parental Sin. I'm going to guess that he feels a bit of what I feel, of the stresses of changes, again. We have had so many scenarios vis a vis his father, so many oh what to say, frequencies of relationship, schedules of appearances, disrupted patterns. We've had many apartments, many New Life Starting Today episodes. And by many I don't mean 20, I mean many. I feel battle-weary and I am 31, how the fuck did I think he would feel? For all my efforts and they are profound and thorough efforts to maintain a stability For Two in the face of all kinds of odds, it is still his life that he is left to live and sometimes it finds the nerve, it finds the cruelty of heart to kick his little seven year old ass like it would an adult. And I have to be here and just say so to him: it is not fair nor warranted when it is this hard.

When it's like this we talk, we do baby therapy I guess. I said to him that we'd be talking more about these "feelings" and that you know if he listed all the things he's got to worry about in his own seven year old life, he'd see he has no space or time left to worry about grown up things like whether something's gonna happen to me, and if it does, will I call him. I said, I'm the caretaker here, I'm the one whose job it is to worry. I said, your job is just (to improve that handwriting and reading and)to be happy--find a way always to be happy; that's what God wants from all kids. He said he promised to do so. I reminded him of his (our) way to vacate the mind so he can sleep when he gets like this. He has to close his eyes and watch himself breathe in and out only, "and if your mind starts thinking, tell it to stop and just watch." But before I said he should remember what he told me today after the phonecalls to everybody, telling them about the love note. Do you remember what you told Mama today, after you hung up from telling Papa about the note? He said, "Yes, I told you, I love being me."

He won't ever understand how much I too have had to hang on his every word to fall asleep at night...