On one level, kids are easy to relate to. We all used to be kids. On another level, it's as hard imagining being a kid as it is imagining being a bug or a whale.
I mean, I remember remembering the sense of everything being gigantic and utterly new, but I can't remember it directly, do you know what I mean? I can't quite remember exactly what it actually felt like.
Things are not gigantic and new anymore. In fact, more and more I'm noticing how much room I take up, how gigantic I am. Not that I'm especially fat, but I am trickily far off the ground (6 feet!).The kids don't have that problem. Gus is as compact as a tenis ball. He's got a shirt that has a cartoon drawing of a monkey on it with dangly arms and legs and it suits him perfectly.
His body is a cartoon body, small and silly and wirey. Hard to imagine what returning to a body like that would be like.
But some things aren't so hard to imagine. For instance, I understand why Gus gets so frustrated. Sharing, for instance, isn't a natural concept. Neither is time.
To this day, I still struggle to not get mad when I don't get what I want when I want it. And also time doesn't make any sense. Everything should last forever. 28 years have helped, but not as much as you'd think.
* * * * *
It's the day the big blizzard is supposed to come. We're all in pajamas waiting for the snow.
I'm watching my kids go back and forth between fighting over and playing with a giant yoga ball they somehow stole from their aunt. One leans on it, the other screams. Then one throws it and knocks the other down and then there is more screaming.
Just now they are happy, but soon one of them will get hurt.
* * * * *
I remember as a kid trying to imagine what it would be like to have a gigantic body like my father's. My dad is 6'5''.
In the early evening, you'd hear his car pull up in the driveway, his key scratch the lock of the front door, and Keeper, our dog, barking authoritatively -- Keeper was an authoritative dog. No-nonsense. He took his responsibilities seriously.
My two little brothers and I were only a little higher off the ground than Keeper. Kids are like action a bunch of action figures from different sets -- the sizes don't match up.
Anyway, my dad would come through the door and he'd be huge, I mean so gigantic I remember distinctly when I was old enough that I could actually jump up and tap him on the shoulder.
His clothes were huge too. I remember a giant rain jacket thing that smelled like cologne that seemed incredibly heavy. And I remember what was now, I realize, a very tiny house as cavernous and full of dark nooks and secrets.
Not to be depressing, but as you get older things get dimmer. There's really no way to escape that fact. Things were infinitely more real back then. Everything you smelled, you touched, it positevely pulsed with reality.Was that just newness? Or our are brains full of little holes now?
Compared to my kids, I can tell I miss a lot. And I'm only 28. One day I'll be 68, if all goes according to plan. And I can tell 68 year old are missing even more than I am (well, some of them anyway).
Anyway, the thing about it is, when you are hanging out with little people to whom everything is new, you realize how stale you are, how you don't see things.
Some of the stuff they think is amazing, utterly amazing. Their brains are so pink and fresh. I was hoping I wouldn't have an old banged up brain when I had kids, but I guess hoping don't make your brain stay fresh.
However, I think once you have kids, you matter a lot less. My kids don't care about the freshness of my brains (unless they turn into Zombies).
They mostly just care that I'm a giant. In their unimaginable little minds, that's what matters most -- that I'm a giant with giant heavy clothing that smells the unknown.
Every once in a while I pick up on a little sliver of their world and it makes me feel great -- I'm a giant!
Who doesn't love a giant?
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