It's about 90 degrees here in Seattle but it feels a perfect 75 because there is literally no humidity. Green Lake is swarming with rollerbladers, dogs, dogs in strollers, kids on leashes, pregnant bikini-tummies, mother ducks and ducklings nestled in the marshy grass, waddling out for a synchronized swim.
I've spent the whole day here after a morning at VBS at our church with the kiddos, and plan to do a week of this. It was the inaugural festivities today--an "Olympian"-themed VBS, where the self-assured marathoners are duelling against the runners on God's team. We all know who winners will be :) It's cute and cheesy like any good evangelical kids' church program should be.
I do have to say that reading the material has has inspired me to ask for God's help to be "strong and courageous," to quote Joshua, and to let the Lord win more of my battles.
I think it feels strange to be a teacher for VBS when it just seems like yesterday that I was throwing water balloons into a plastic pool and making coffee coasters out of wooden stirrers, complete with puff paint. I LIVED for VBS in the summer. I seriously would go through the newspaper (because where we lived was so conservative they actually had VBS listings competing with the Entertainment section), and select which ones I would attend, and write them on my puppy and kitty calendar.
I was such good girl. Sometimes I wish that had been different, as I read the written accounts of dad David Sheff, author of Beautiful Boy. He writes about his son, Nic, who became addicted to meth, but before his soul was taken by meth, he was literally the most charismatic, charming, witty, and intelligent kid. But then maybe that's just a dad's bias. But seriously, after reading that book today out on the lawn in front of Green lake, I found myself getting a bit jealous and angry. (I didn't realize that's what I was feeling until just now, but I pinpointed it).
I'm jealous because I imagine myself as being the perfect, most accomplished grown-up if I had only had the opportunities Nic had. I'm jealous because he fucked them up, and I would have done such a better job. I would have been so studious, so responsible on my semester at the American University in Paris, brushing up on my French and my fashion sense and cultural aesthetic before the ripe old age of 18, freshman year at Berkeley; no drugs or drinking, maybe a romantic rendezvous on the steps of the Rue Beethoven, but always discreet with Parisian sophistication.
Damn him. Why couldn't God have distributed his gifts a little more judiciously?
...The commercial he landed, just because he happened to be at the right playdate at the right time. One of his pre-adolescent buddies had a parent who was in the business.
Yet I have a feeling that therein lies the irony--that a parent can give a kid every opportunity and they can still end up in an alleyway camped out next to a trashcan.
And I lie caught between my fury of "what the hell were you thinking, kid--you had everything I ever wanted! A progressive learning environment with organic cookies made with cane sugar, drama classes, and all forms of self-expression; a literary diet of Steinbeck, Kerouac, and Salinger, surfing at Santa Cruz....
And I say, if only my life had been different. Our life contexts--our families, our neighborhoods, our schools, whether one takes the subway or bus, whether one travels to the Hamptons for the summer or Baldwin Oaks Campground, whether one's parents let them play videogames all day or made them practice the piano, whether there were art supplies available, or whether the parents projected their own selves to such a degree on their children that they weren't able to even really see their gifts.... Limitations. No escape. The gift of being born, the curse of not being able to choose when and to whom and so many other things along the way. I guess some things are better left decided to chance, providence, God.
On second thought, maybe I will trade in a few days of sun in Seattle for a heaven in which acting lessons and surfing and music and writing abound, and there is no timidity or shyness or limited finances or parents who demand gratitude and kids who are so naively prodigal.
... So here's a future toast to an endless summer that will give way to the colors of fall and the purity of winter without the dying. To when we will Know and Love completely.
No comments:
Post a Comment