Apr 30, 2013

If we need to, we know how

On the drive home from school yesterday my 6 year old told me his class earned extra playground time for doing so well in the 'lockdown drill'. Reluctant to even ask but I did and was momentarily stilled by the non-chalance in his voice as he described hiding quietly in a closet upon hearing 'We are in lockdown!' on the intercom three consecutive times.
         The quiet crying I did for the next few blocks of the drive was as much for that non-chalance as for the indelible place 'lockdown drill' has now made in our memories of his childhood.
         When the Newtown shootings happened in 2012, I did not panic and rush to hug my child at the end of that day like many of my friends. My stomach still does a flip when I think of those little kids in the CT classrooms but I don't let myself go there very often. At the time, I channeled my fear instead into FB spiels about an over-sensational media that enables attention seeking psychopaths. Even got a petition started and wrote to a few papers.
         Our head space hasn't gotten any sunnier given that the past few weeks has forced us to tackle, with said 6 year old, why a couple of young men blew up 200 people at the Boston marathon, and then had us in a state of siege (we live a few miles from Watertown square where the showdown unfolded). Strangely though, all roads keep leading us to discussions about how NOT to be mad and make poor choices, how to instead do what we can to help each other out.

So I won't get any more maudlin than I already have about this now. Because this much is true: in the horrors that have unfolded in the public arena over the past few months, I've found myself thinking a WHOLE lot more about the power of goodness, kindness and Mr. Rogers' 'helpers' than ever before.
         In trying to equip our son with filters to help him see reality in shades of Hope, I've found them for myself. This too is possible then: angry, broken people who hurt others - can primarily inspire understanding and compassion and help highlight how much is right with the world.
        Besides which the truth is that it's probably more painful for us parents because of the comparisons we feel compelled to make with our relatively innocent childhood. Yet I'm convinced that our respective realities, our children's and ours, are as varied as they are valid. We are each shaped by our experiences and innocence - hope and goodness persevere regardless. 

It also made me ponder that strange behavioural phenomena of 'Transference', wherein we transfer our own despair onto others and craft a world that is necessarily darker than reality. Look at me: I felt so devastated at my perceived loss of Oyon's innocence but how wrong I was proved. Any loss of innocence is mine: MY perception of the world was damaged by the Newtown shooting, MY view of school as safe haven for the nurturing of my young child was corrupted. But it's ALL IN MY HEAD. There have been mass shootings before in this country and young children are killed all over the world all the time. I've just been inured to them through the priviledge of distance and entitlement. True - it should not be do and that acceptance of this is somewhat an admission of defeat. We should still canvas for gun abolition (like other civilized nations) but in the meantime....the truth is that world is just as it has always been - full of darkness AND light. When I focus on the one more than the other, I personally craft the quality of my experience. And by assuming that another person (like young Oyon) is also sharing in that experience, I run the risk of sentencing him to it, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

As it turns out, HE'S neither scared nor anxious. I AM! He's calm, collected and prepared to take care of himself if the need arises. So very, very illuminating for me to realise this so tangibly. That this pain and disillusionment is relative and really, invisible to a child's mind in the ways that count. There is no real cause for pain on their behalf.

          But that didn't prevent me that day from crying at my son's casual acceptance of Lockdown Drills 'in case something dangerous is going on in school'.
It DID however help me turn a smiling face eventually to him and say 'I'm glad you did so well at the drill'.
His reply? 'Yeah, me too. We're probably not going to need it. But if we do, I'll know how. What's for dinner?'

And that's all there is to it, I guess.

If we need to, we know how.
In the meantime, life goes on.

5 comments:

  1. AnonymousMay 01, 2013

    Succinct, moving, articulate, direct, and hopeful. Very well written.

    Zohra

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    1. Thank you Zohra. As mom of two, I know you probably relate to much of this.

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  2. C, it brought tears to my eyes too....your feeling is so alive and sharp it cut me through...it's so interesting, I was reading Catch-22, wouldn't say reading but flipping through it last night and in the morning when I was reading your blog I do feel that it's all Catch-22....

    “What a lousy earth! He wondered how many people were destitute that same night even in his own prosperous country, how many homes were shanties, how many husbands were drunk and wives socked, and how many children were bullied, abused, or abandoned. How many families hungered for food they could not afford to buy? How many hearts were broken? How many suicides would take place that same night, how many people would go insane? How many cockroaches and landlords would triumph? How many winners were losers, successes failures, and rich men poor men? How many wise guys were stupid? How many happy endings were unhappy endings? How many honest men were liars, brave men cowards, loyal men traitors, how many sainted men were corrupt, how many people in positions of trust had sold their souls to bodyguards, how many had never had souls? How many straight-and-narrow paths were crooked paths? How many best families were worst families and how many good people were bad people? When you added them all up and then subtracted, you might be left with only the children, and perhaps with Albert Einstein and an old violinist or sculptor somewhere.”

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    2. Thanks for reading Sumi and for sharing that excerpt from 'Catch 22'. I'd like to think that my post was not just about what is broken but also about our resilience. Also that strange behavioural phenomena of 'Transference', wherein we transfer our own despair onto others and craft a world that is necessarily darker than reality. Look at me: I felt so devastated at my perceived loss of Oyon's innocence but how wrong I was proved. Any loss of innocence is mine: MY perception of the world was damaged by the Newtown shooting, my view of school as safe haven for the nurturing of my young child was corrupted. But it's ALL IN MY HEAD. There have been mass shootings before in this country and young children are killed all over the world all the time. I've just been inured to them through the priviledge of distance and entitlement. The world is just as it has always been - full of darkness AND light. When I focus on the one more than the other, I personally craft the quality of my experience. And by assuming that others (like young Oyon) is also sharing in that experience, I run the risk of sentencing him to it, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. As it turns out, HE'S neither scared nor anxious. I AM! He's calm, collected and prepared to take care of himself if the need arises. So very, very illuminating for me to realise this so tangibly. And it's also the reason why Heller's excerpt does NOT resonate with me. Of course, there's bad in good. Just like there is a little 'good' in 'bad' too. Reductionist views that paint all in shades of black and white are becomeing more and more surreal and destructive to me. Increasingly i see ecidence that the quality of our lives are determined by the experiences that we CHOOSE to have. We are not as helpless in this as we might imagine: some may label it escapism, but the truth is that we can find the good or the bad in situations, based on what we feel like looking for. Seeing the brighter side of things generates a great deal less complacence in my opinion, than cynical views of how everything is doomed and broken. Cynicism bleeds energy and hope, but seeing the good in things can BREED it, motivate more action. Anyway, it's all personal opinion in the end I guess. Thanks again for reading and I hope the Hope calls out to you as well as the despair. Look to the young people of tomorrow: blank slates in some ways, but charged with energy and opinions that for the most part are postivie, because we all start out that way.

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