2 posts tagged “reality”

Happy May Day.

I'm starting to think that this 'reality' thing is going to be a theme with me. 

I pick up my six year old after school with her 'date' for the afternoon, a very quiet, sweet little guy, Danny, also in Kindergarten.  First thing A says to me is "I told Danny how we usually fly home, Mom.  Okay?  Right?"  Danny giggles.  "Right, Mom?  We usually fly so could we just do it?"

This is where I usually grapple with the reality thing.  "Fly?  In the sky?  You mean in this car?" 

"Yeah.  Remember?"

"Right.  Okay.  Only I just saw a policeman on a motorcycle and I think he's giving out tickets to all the flying cars today."

"Mom.  We're flying over him.  Remember?  He won't catch us."  She says in a voice much too dry for someone her age (Also her assurance that the cop won't catch us could really disturb me if I let it)

I drive about a mile when A says, "So when are we going to fly?"

"We just did.  Didn't you see it?  We were going so fast.  Danny saw it, right Danny?

Danny giggles again, looks from me to A and back to me again, then says, tentatively, "Yeah."

"Mom, we're still in the sky.  You see?  We're surrounded by clouds.  You see, Danny?  I told you so."

Now I'm wondering how fucked up Danny is going to think this all is.  What will he tell his parents, I wonder.  Do his parents do as much kidding and storytelling as we do?  Does he still believe in Santa Claus or is his family one of those that stresses the importance of reality vs. fantasy after the age of three?  On one hand I secretly hope that my daughter's or son's imagination will continue to soar and give way to some lucrative rewarding career in the arts or scientific invention, and on the other hand I wonder, "Will my daughter's 'stories' morph in ten years into "that's not my bong, Mom.  Amy left it here."  See?  I'm always getting ahead of myself.  Relax, I whisper aloud.  Relax, Karen.  It's just a flying car for Chrissake. 

Dropped my daughter off Saturday at a party for a friend turning six.  At a gymnastic place...you know, where they run and swing and balance and cake all in one place with lots of fresh-faced teens over-looking the thing, and lots of parents.  I took my son to get Mad Libs and a burger at Pie & Burger during the festivities.  At my daughter's bedtime that night I asked her to tell me more about the party:

"Well, I was on that thing that's really skinny that you have to balance on..."

"The balance beam."

"Right.  And you have to flip off.  Do a flip and jump off and I did it like 13, no 100...or, like a million times?  And I got really good.  I was at level one and I moved up to level four..."

The influence of her brother's video games...

"So I was at level four, I mean, level two.  And I flipped.  In the air.  And landed.  And on the thing where you swing I swinged around and flipped in the air and I was really good even though I only had practiced an hour.  And I don't even need lessons."

Later my son asked me if I believed A about having flipped in the air.

I said that I believed that she believed that she did it. 

"No, come on, Mom.  Really.  Just tell me that you don't believe it."

"I believe that she believes it.  Just like I believe that she believes in Santa.  It's not really important that either of us tell her right now that we don't believe her.  You know what I mean?"

He thinks about this.  "But she didn't flip, Mom.  Just tell me that you know that.  Just say it."

I laugh.  He laughs, but can't let it go.  "Say it!"  He giggles.

I think only how charmed I am that my six year old still believes in her own tall tales, still has conversations on the swing with imaginary people (when she thinks no one is in earshot), whispers secrets in the dog's ear and believes him to understand.  Now's the time to do it, rather than be thirty and fictionalizing your own story, but that is another conversation entirely.

"Okay.  She didn't flip in reality.  Alright?"

My son is satisfied.  --K