reactions may vary

This isn’t how I’d want to hear it.

A pass out of class, summoned mysteriously to the media center.

Corralled toward tables with dozens of classmates, whispering, searching each others’ eyes for a clue.

In their upright clothes, adults — administrators, counselors, absolute strangers — stand around the perimeter, somber yet chummy: the public school system crisis team in full force, assembled and ready.

Waiting for “everyone” (whoever that is) to arrive, wondering at the common thread between us all.

Then the cleared throat, the single sheet of plain white photocopy stock, the authoritative recital:

We have some sad news to share with you that some of you may not have heard. On [INSERT DATE], [INSERT NAME], a [INSERT GRADE LEVEL] in our school, died suddenly. [INSERT ONE SHORT, PASSIVE VOICE, NONCOMMITTAL, ZERO-BLAME SENTENCE ABOUT CAUSE OF DEATH.] We will need to wait for an investigation to be completed before we can know more.

We are never prepared to deal with an unexpected loss such as this, and doing so may take some time. When we hear sad news like this, lots of people feel many different emotions — sadness, anger, confusion, helplessness, guilt. All of these feelings are normal. Reactions to death may vary for each of you. Members of our counseling staff will be available in the media center if you feel you would like to talk to someone. Your teacher will sign your agenda book to let you come down to the media center.

At this time we do not have information about funeral services.

A pause for questions. As if.

Statement delivered, they stand there, watching, adult eyes fixed on us, looking for — what? A crack of emotion? A “normal” response? Shall we distribute the candles right here and sing Kum Bah Ya?

No one walks up to them. No one makes eye contact. A few sniffle, a few whisper; most wonder how long until we can return to class, please.

It’s not a crisis management event. It’s not a grief counseling session.

It is death.

School has nothing to say in its face.

epiphany

Noon, the kitchen lights off.  He sits in the dim blue air chewing orange slices, talking about his new bicycle helmet, thumping his palms on the table and bounce-kicking in the garish plastic booster he’s too old for but still enjoys. He’s backlit, the box window tracing his shape in a gentle blue that nestles in his curls. Rattling off lines from bedtime books, his round eyes look to mine for approval. At two and a half he’s shed the last signs of the toddler — he is all boy. He asks for more chocolate milk, shoulders in their rugby shirt squared to face me, neck lifted, anticipating. Yesterday’s hike shows in the sun splashed across his cheeks. He’s no copy of me: chestnut hair is lighter than mine, not as tangled; forehead wider, bolder; eyes Egyptian-pinched. But as he holds his cup with head tilted, awaiting my answer, it occurs to me, watching this little person as I finish the dishes in the sink: if I had the power to custom-craft a child, I would make him exactly like this. Curious, rambunctious, sincere. A bit ruddy, a bit tender. And absolutely perfect.

vestigial proof

How ludicrously they dangled up there — two little wires suspending them beneath the spine, about midway between ribs and tail. Grayish-white, cylindrical; small batons frozen in midair.

Leg bones. In a whale.

I remember gaping at the overhead skeleton as my fourth grade class filed through the Smithsonian. I wondered if whales even knew they had those bones. Could they feel them? I marveled at the vastness of time, the relentless march that expelled fish onto land and drew them back again as mammals.

It almost seemed too incredible — but there they were, leg remnants in a whale, plain as day. Two hundred million years could do anything. (They could even draw a whale out of a deer the size of a fox!)

evolutionary psychology — it’s all in your mind

It’s everywhere these days. Whether the topic is economics or romance, politics or sports, articles often refer to studies that explain why we do what we do from an evolutionary perspective.

Since survival of the fittest shaped our minds as well as our bodies, the research strategy is to determine how any (and every!) behavior contributed to gene propagation. According to the Center for Evolutionary Psychology (CEP), such findings prove evolution’s importance:

[C]onsideration of how humans evolved can inform various subfields of neuroscience and psychology. The very idea that humans evolved has come under legal siege in the U.S. during the last several years. It is important to continue to demonstrate that humans no less than other species show significant evidence of being the organized product of natural selection —- and in subtle, unexpected ways not easily explained by blank-slate learning or “intelligent design”. (source)

Sadly, despite so hefty a claim of importance, evolutionary psychology makes presumptions that lead to hasty conclusions, neglecting to investigate fully the reasons for our behavior.

it’s not easy

In the middle of naptime he screams. One knee is twisted between two crib rails; pain and entrapment drive him to panic. Must’ve been playing instead of sleeping.

As my wife disentangles him, she gets a whiff of another stealth activity. Corroborating evidence surrounds him: smear across his chest, clawmarks on his sheet, makeup applied to the face of his stuffed cow. What arrived in his diaper is now everywhere.

I am summoned. Together we adults impress upon our child the seriousness of this infraction. Do not play with poopy. Do not even touch it. We strip him of his clothes, make a pile of blankets, sheets and Mr. Cow.

snow rebellion

Fluffy, quiet, all afternoon the flakes fell gently. He’d wanted to walk among them, to breathe in the world’s white transfiguration. By the time I organized myself, however, he’d already moved on.

“I want to play trains,” he intoned.

“Come on, it’s snow!” I coaxed. “Let’s get your boots on. We’ll have a great time.”

Cornered, his eyes sunk, lower lip retracted. “I want to play trains.”

through his eyes

I wish I could see life through my son’s eyes.

In his infancy we placed him on a colorful playmat with overhead toys. I shoved my face inside to feel what it was like.

I’ve positioned my head at his level in the carseat to figure out how much he sees as we drive (more than I expected). I’ve checked the view of a ceiling fan from the floor below (a steady circular motion, not the swoop-swoop-swooping oval from adult height). I’ve crouched to look straight up into the lighted mobile above his swing (brighter, more colorful than apparent from anywhere but the seat).

I’ve even used the excuse of “retrieving my son” to crawl through the multi-storied jungle gym at Chick-Fil-A (hey, they didn’t have those things when I grew up).

the year i smelled like milk

I ate camel’s paw and sea slug. Police detained me twice. I took part, unwittingly, in a romantic farewell on a train platform. A crowd nearly trampled me on a bus. I barfed my brains out and thanked God for it.

The year I taught in China definitely had its moments. People seem to enjoy those stories almost as much as I enjoy telling them.

So in honor of 2008, Beijing’s Olympic year, I’m posting my experiences online.

The Year I Smelled Like Milk:
Stories from Beijing

I began drafting pieces for this blog over a year ago and (between work and family) have been revising since then. Total weight in words: over 50,000 — an online book, really. One post will appear every weekday beginning today. The full run should finish in May — well in time for the Olympics.

Future generations will remember 2008 as China’s year. I hope you enjoy these offbeat memoirs from my experiences there.

woe is me, cries the creationist

“Woe, woe is me,” cries the creationst! “O, vexed the life that spurns reason!”

Once upon a time I let creationist questions get the better of me. Ever since my life has been hardship and suffering.

I can’t maintain a career because employers keep letting me go. They don’t believe entropy makes heat disperse throughout the whole patty, so it isn’t necessary to flip the burgers. Imagine how much labor could be saved!

My marriage is in shambles. My wife keeps threatening to leave unless I give her reasons for everything. Reasons, schmeasons. “Because I said so” is good enough for the kids, why isn’t it good enough for her?

face-off

“Read to me?” he asked, patting the couch.

“Sure!” I plunked down and took the book from his lap.

“No!” He ripped the book from my hands. “I read it!”

By this he meant he wanted to hold the book and turn the pages himself while I read aloud. I understood this, even welcomed it. Good for him, taking steps toward independent reading.

Still, that didn’t justify the ferocity of his retrieval, and I shot him a look for it: brow raised, chin lowered, glaring over the rim of my glasses — a look that said, “Well!”

… and there he was, shooting a look right back: brow raised, chin lowered, glaring out of the tops of his eye sockets — a look that said, “That’ll show you!”

My wife, witness to this expressional face-off, burst out laughing. So did I. And so did he.

That particular expression is a regular in my repertoire, but I never knew what it looked like from the outside until my son aimed it back at me.

jumping Jesus

Things got a little weird when we unpacked our nativity scene.

Two and a half years old, our oldest showed little response as we unwrapped Mary and Joseph. But when baby Jesus emerged his whole face brightened: “Baby Jesus. Baby Jesus!” He snatched the figurine and cradled it in both palms, scrutinizing. So this was the Jesus person he’d heard so much about. I wondered what he was thinking, wondered how this image of an infant Christ was reshaping earlier impressions.

Within minutes he stood by the couch, raising and lowering the figurine in quick jerks. “Baby Jesus jumping. Baby Jesus jumping on the couch!” Our nativity had transformed into an action figure playset.

the second greatest story ever told

My older son came along to pick up a Papa John’s pizza. On the drive home it occurred to me that a two-year-old might not understand the nature of this little transaction, so I spelled it out for him in simple terms.

“Again?” he asked.

“You want to hear it again?” I asked. “Alright.” As I repeated the pizza-ordering process he echoed each line, enthusiasm mounting until we reached the climax.

“Again?” he asked.

By the time we were home he could voice the entire thing with me fluently:

This is how it works: when you get hungry you say, “Hmm, I think I want a pizza.” So you call the store and say, “Please make me a pizza.” And the store makes you a pizza with bread, tomatoes and cheese — that’s a pizza! Then you drive to the store and say, “Where’s my pizza?” They say, “Here it is!” So you give them money, and they give you the pizza. Then you drive home and you eat it!

What about this story delighted him so much? I suspect it was the first lengthy how-to narrative he’d ever heard. It spelled out a process from start to finish, and he could visualize each step easily because he experienced it with me.

How astounding it must be, hearing words paint the first full story in your mind.

unspoken rules

He was so curious about our 3D Tic-Tac-Toe set, I figured why not. How complicated is tic-tac-toe?

Very.

Forget strategy; forget even the concept of winning. As we played, my son gave me a step-by-step education on the numerous possibilities for invalidating a game.

It turns out board games require a host of principles we take for granted:

when ben was born

Just before my son was born, I wrote a memoir to the child we lost to miscarriage. It was a small way to capture thoughts, feelings and memories before they faded away.

In about a week we expect the birth of our next child, prompting my wife and I to revisit our first delivery. Since details about the two deliveries are bound to become muddled over time, it seemed appropriate to capture the first in words before the second oversweeps it.

I’ve posted the new piece as a page:

seedlings: when ben was born

hi back

I don’t get people who don’t say hi back.

I’m no moron — I don’t walk through life saying hi to everyone I pass. But in some situations acknowledging a person’s presence, even if I don’t intend to start a conversation, just makes sense. Like passing on a wilderness trail. Or seeing a visitor waiting in the lobby while I’m also waiting there. Or noticing someone setting up nearby at the beach.

“Hi.” It’s a simple enough word, a modest recognition of a fellow life traveler. Somehow it’s also too much to ask. Not that I say hi in order to hear it back — it’s just that choosing not to respond is utterly foreign to me. I guess women have an excuse: they don’t know I’m not a stalker. But men?

How do they manage it? — looking right at me as they walk past, leaving my greeting hanging there in midair between us like an unreturned handshake. I say hi to everyone who first says it to me. It’s a reflex. Resisting it would take serious conscious effort.