THE JOY OF PLAY

the shadow line series by tj worthington

 

Went to visit friends Justin and Crystal to see the day's race, and watch Vada play. She played like a kitten the whole time I was there. I told Crystal I have my very own Vada now in the form of a kitten that plays all the time. Vada makes everything into play. She picked up a small package of her daddy's, what looked to me like, earplugs. She said it's candy, let's eat it. I said I don't think daddy wants us eating his earplugs. She said it's all right, and she acted like she picked one up and handed it to me to eat. I acted like I ate it. She asked if it was good. I told her it was and she pretended to eat one. Later, she had some blue play-dough (sp?) and stuffed it into a plastic tea cup. She pressed it to my mouth, the play-dough, and said, "Drink." I pretended to drink. She said, "Was it yuckie?" She then smelled my lips and said "It smells yuckie." I was laughing inside the whole time I was there with Vada playing while the tv was going, giving me a fun distraction from something that gets a bit monotonous after a few hours.

The last 80 laps are the most interesting for me, though the earlier part of the race is important, too, to see how the different drivers are doing, who is having a good day and who is not. I love about the races that they are unpredictable. I hear announcers talk about who is favored to win and what's gonna happen and I think, Shut up. There is no knowing who will win, sometimes right up to the finish line. I've seen a win by a few inches and a win by a quarter of a lap. I've seen a big pile-up at the finish line where a dozen cars crossed the finish line wrecking, sideways, backwards, tires smoking. I've seen the winner run out of gas with a quarter lap to go and have to coast to the finish line to come in second. It is bound to be big betting business in Vegas and underground gambling all over the country and around the world. It's such big money, I think some people are looking for ways to rig a race for betting, though I can't see any way it could be done. Seems like football and basketball would be easy to rig, but a 400 mile and 500 mile race seems a bit more difficult. Where money is happening, a way will be found if it hasn't already.

We watched the last quarters of several football games, saw a few good plays, mostly quarterback sacks. Not an exemplary day for football. Vada played with her mermaid doll and danced around in her fairy dress, not a tutu, but a long nightgown type dress with pictures of animation girls from a kids movie. I asked who they were. She said, They're fairies. I thought, interesting. How many years has it been since I've heard the word fairy? It seems like it just about left the language and some kids movie brought it back. I found a word, reading Orwell's 1984, published in 1946, that has fallen out of the American vocabulary except as a product, tang. Orwell used the word in its original meaning before "the drink of astronauts," Tang, came on in the 1950s. Tang the drink put an end to tang the word. Vada kept me in good humor the whole time I was at the house, playing nonstop, stream-of-consciousness, one idea following another in a flow that went as the wind blows.

 

Though Sophia was back home, I felt the same spirit with Sophia as with Vada today. Both are relentlessly entertaining. Vada kept Sophia in my mind, and now Sophia is keeping Vada in my mind. Seeing Vada today, after a couple weeks living with a kitten, it charmed me to see human baby and cat baby loving play so similarly, stream-of-consciousness play from one thing to the next with no transition between the two but their random sequence. It's what the living do in childhood, play and learn at hyper-speed. I find it curious that our first interaction with the world, growing into it, humans, the four-leggeds, birds, I don't know about fish, but they probably play too, we play. And, like Vada and Sophia, we play nonstop thinking nothing could be more important than the moment's play. We adults continue to play, we just do it in more twisted forms. The games adults play are games like one-upmanship, the one I find most tiresome. We gamble, get drunk, get high, race cars, shoot guns, listen to rock, continuation of play into adulthood. It's good to have Sophia and Vada in my life in a time when I'd about forgotten play. It's fun right now with kitten crawling all over me. 

the shadow line series

by tj worthington

 

 

*

 

 

 

CHILDREN ARE LITTLE PEOPLE

 

vada

 

It is a rainy Monday bringing to mind a line from a pop song, Rainy days and Mondays always bring me down. Mamas & Papas. Something must be wrong. It's a double whammy today and I feel fine. I thought it was a boring song at the time. It's a boring song now. Like the Fleetwood Mac line, Thunder only happens when it's raining. Gag! Give me a break. I love the song right up there among their best, but every time I hear this line my mind comes in with, 'That is so not the case, how did the songwriter's inner critic allow such a ridiculous line?' But it works. Evidently, I'm the only one to notice. Or it totally doesn't matter. It's like a friend who can only speak in slang starting sentences with everybody, everything, nobody, nothing. Paying close attention to his language, which I have to do to try to figure out what he's saying, going not by what he says, but by what he means, I find he often negates a point he is making while he is making it. When I tell him he has negated everything he said, then I'm not paying attention to what's essential, just criticizing grammar. Whatever. I've attempted to point out that the only thing everybody does is ingest, evacuate and die. That's not what he meant. I'm expected to divine what he meant like I'm psychic.

Maybe I'm a literalist, hyper-aware of language. It is so. I am. Games I play with children tend toward language games, playing with words. Years ago in a car riding all the way back from Charlotte, two hours, I was with 2 kids and their mother. Little girl sitting in the middle of the front seat, mama driving, me shotgun, I probably said to her in play, "You look like a (fill in the blank) monkey." She said, "You look like a (fill in the blank) horse." She was six. We played like that back and forth, each one of us saying something that had not been said before, like, You look like a cloud, You look like a speed limit sign. You look like a tire, you look like the sky. You look like a windshield wiper. Everything we could think up. It started with easy words like the examples above, and evolved into abstract ideas in the words after it was dark and we were dependent on our minds after using up every item in and outside the car. The closer we came to home a very mild desperation came over us to get this wound up before the time is up, having so much fun we could have looked for words until we fell asleep from weariness. We were stretching way out there looking for meanings in words. I was so blown away by this child's vocabulary to start with, then the conceptual abilities in her mind. One of the many times I've seen intelligence in children that kids are not given credit for. Riding down my road the words were getting better. Car pulled up to let me out and it was her turn. She thought a moment before I opened the door and said, "You look like a gate." That one blew my circuits, I was so impressed by her child's mind. I said, "That was the best of them all." Her mother looked at me like she already knew I was stupid, now it's confirmed.

 

I can sit with a little kid just learning language and say Is, Is not, Is, Is not, Is, Is not for hours and never grow tired of it. Adults invariably tell us to stop at a certain point. For me, it is a communication moment with a clear, clean soul from out of the Blue, a mind uncluttered, fresh, untaught, fully aware of the moment. Playing a game like that with a kid, we're making eye-contact much of the time, and it is continuous mind contact. The kid is communicating at his/her level of comprehension, delighted with an adult who can understand the fun in repeating same words back and forth without end, as a mind brand new to this world understands it. The Pee Wee Herman lines, Take a picture, it'll last longer. I know you are, but what am I? It's children's slap-stick. When we grow out of it, we think it's stupid, but while we're in that phase of brain development, it is really funny. I like to play word games with kids. It is a good exercise for their quickly developing minds, conceptually more than the words. I can sit on the floor with a baby and roll a ball back and forth until the adults tell us to stop. At first, they think it's cute, then it's starting to look like it could go on forever, then it does go on forever, it starts getting on their nerves and they can't see or think about anything else. STOP. It disappoints us every time. This is how kids play at certain ages. What we're actually doing is tuning in to each other, communicating pre-language without words. We laugh. Baby and I are able to communicate very well after such shared experiences.

vada

Something like twenty years ago, I sat with half a dozen kids I knew, aged 6-10, thereabouts, and we watched a collection of Weird Al Yankovic music videos.  We're a garage band from Seattle--I guess that's better than raising cattle. Nature trail to hell. The kids were rolling on the floor holding their bellies. The ones in chairs fell out onto the floor. The room was hysterical with laughter for an hour. Adult women in the kitchen playing Thanksgiving, adult men watching football on another tv, and TJ in there laughing with the kids. When I "baby-sat" kids we'd watch a video of something they wanted to see. I saw Honey I Shrunk The Kids and laughed along with the kids. I loved it. Especially riding on the bee's back flying over the lawn. I could not enjoy that or Toy Story without kids anything at all like I enjoy them with kids. I couldn't watch one without kids. With kids, I enjoy seeing how the kids, themselves, comprehend. I treat the kids the same as I treat grownups, with basic human respect. The little bit of respect that doesn't interrupt them mid-sentence in a way that says I'm not interested in hearing anything you have to say, goes a long way toward simply affirming a child as a human being. When a kid wants to tell me something, I pay attention, the very same as when an adult wants to tell me something. Kids appreciate an adult who notices them, one who appreciates them as who they are at this time in their lives when consciousness is fully present with a new mind learning to catch up to everybody around them.

vada

In my own childhood, I told myself all along the way that when I grow up I will remember what it's like to be a child, how a child thinks, what a child sees, what a child knows all along the way of development. Some of the teachers seemed to get it a little bit. Only grandparents seemed to get it a little bit of family and the adults the kid knew through family, like the people at church. Very few of the adults in my life as a child were aware that a child was conscious. I vowed to myself all the way through childhood I would remember what it is like and at least talk with kids like they are simply aware. I wanted to be a teacher all the way though school. I wanted to be a teacher who understood the kids. By the time I'd finished college, I did not want any more to do with the school system, either side of the desk. Did not want to go to graduate school. Did not want to be a part of the educational system, even at the college level. It would be too much like being in the military. I knew I would be fired before the end of the first year of teaching. I can't operate by Policy. I will not put myself in a position where I have to answer questions, "Policy." My lifetime refusal to forfeit basic rights to have a good-paying job or to have position and status has kept me in the working class where I belong. I went into college wanting to climb into the middle class, came out of college wanting nothing to do with the middle class. I set out to live my life without money the motivation. Mostly, I've used this lifetime for learning. It turns out that puts me in a kind of common ground with the kids, makes it fun to play games with them that exercise their comprehension. I tend to see kids as little people. When I regard them as such, they respond, become animated, show me their toys, tell me their stories, share with me what is important to them. I value all the kids I know and have known with a loving heart that continues when they grow up.

vada, 2yr 2wk

 

*

AN END AND A BEGINNING

table

The child abuse situation took a turn on Monday morning. Justin does not need to jeopardize his own life with manslaughter charges or kick some ass. The state of North Carolina will be doing the ass kicking for him. I imagine by now the man that hits children to hurt them is looking at his future as a big black hole about to swallow him. I can only feel sorrow for him, because the punishment, in my way of seeing, is greater than the crime. But that's not my call. America is a venal society. He'd have got off better with one good ass-kicking and ball bat bruises on his head from Justin. That would have set him straight. But this is better. He was wrecking a little girl's life, and now it's his life that is wrecked. Thanks to him, little girl will now have a life.

tree dance

She's a tough little kid who has already been through a lot at 5. The hitting hurt like hell, but it was also what she was used to. The worst part is getting used to it. Now she can feel safe, cared for, protected. One thing she knows at the age of 5 is her daddy will protect her. The fear she's lived with will fade away. Her daddy will also teach her over time how to protect herself. She's already a good fighter, living with a half-brother 3 years older, who is seething with anger as a child does who lives in fear. The day I saw the boy, I noted to Justin the importance of getting the girl away from him before he goes into puberty. The growth hormones in fast food burgers are bringing kids into puberty sooner than ever now. The girl was in severe danger.

red umbrella

 

The last couple of days have been about the happiest of my life. My eyes have been wet all day both days, and many times dropping a tear from joy. I didn't realize how much I cared about her, loved her. I didn't realize how important we are to each other. I'd only see her a time or two a month, and then she was on short-term vacation, jumping out of her skin from her nervous condition living in fear. When she ran to me and clung to me the rest of the time I was at the house, I realized I must be something like a grandpa for her she shares her joy with. I pay attention to her is probably what did it. I forget that adults don't pay attention to kids except to correct them. When an adult pays attention to a kid, for the kid it is a big deal, noticed by a grownup as something besides in the way. I automatically connect with a kid with eye contact and listen to what they want to tell me, regarding the individual within the same as I regard the individual within an adult. The only difference I see between a child and an adult is size and experience.

kitty-kitty

The experience part is the key word. Human adults have such powerful and complex psychic energy, I have a hard time with too much of it. I recall the Zatoichi movies, Japanese, of Zatoichi the Blind Swordsman. He was a samurai monk. His walking stick was his sword. When the sword left its sheath it drew blood. He could feel psychic energy from adults. No adult could slip up on him from behind or any direction. Children could slip up on Zatoichi, because they're not radiating the energy we adults give off like the scent of a skunk that precedes it. Zatoichi loved the children and the children loved him. There are a couple of Zatoichi movies, both of them good films. Steven Seagal's character that ran through his different roles was based in Zatoichi. Like Zatoichi, he took care of children and drunks. Zatoichi comes to mind whenever I feel especially intense energy radiating from somebody. His eyes could not see, but he had this gift of seeing energy.

caterpillar

I feel happy all the way around. I'm struggling for a word all day I can't find. The impulse is to say I am proud of Justin for who he is. But proud is not the word. It's the easy word for what I'm feeling, not the word itself. To say proud is like I'm taking credit for something. It's not me, it's him. I've known him all his life and I know he has in him what he is showing right now. Like he said to me on the telephone earlier, "I'll die for my young'uns." It was not an idle cliché spoken for the sound of it. I know he means it. His young'uns will grow up knowing that. I know one little girl whose daddy is her super-hero. That's what I've been seeing that has my sea of emotion in big waves, a helpless and hopeless little child living in fear and anger, rescued, safe, loved, understood, appreciated, starting over with all new clothes, even a new school where she has cousins. No mementos of bad memories. It's more awe I feel for Justin than pride. It's awe to see Justin with such stature as a man. And it's not that he's doing the right thing so much as seeing it an expression of his heart, the emotional health of his heart. Through this experience I've seen that Justin's heart and his mind work together as one. That's what I'm in awe of.

swimming pool

*

FOR BEING GOOD TO A KID

robert motherwell, red

It was in my first years in the mountains, late 1970s, that Malissie Pruitt told me something that stuck with me. In those years I was enamoured of country wisdom, still am, though the old wisdom is going away with the old people. About all that's left of country wisdom by now is in nursing homes on the foggy mountain top of memory loss. I remember Malissie was standing at the sink working in the kitchen and I was standing beside the refrigerator, we were talking. I don't remember what we were talking about, but she said, "Be good to a child and you'll have a friend for life." That's the kind of knowledge I think of as wisdom. I tend to be sympathetic with kids, appreciate them as individuals, am able to listen to kids and roll a ball back and forth without end. I like a child's point of view that is not yet corrupted with traditional ways of seeing and thinking, expectations, and then the sexual confusion at whatever age puberty happens now that puts an end to childhood like a door slammed in your face. It's easy for me to be good to a kid, and I did see over time that kids I knew continue to know me after they grow up and we're always glad to see each other.

Then, maybe five or so years later a kid was born I didn't yet know. When he was about two, I became acquainted with his daddy putting up hay and working together. Became friendly with the family and visited them more and more as time went by. I became a friend with everyone in the house. The boy was having a rough time that I recognized as a version of the hard time I went through in my vulnerable years. An insane daddy. In my time, a couple who were friends of my parents, Jack and DeLouris, became my "witnesses," meaning they witnessed what I was going through at home. I found in a book I think by Swiss psychologist Alice Miller that a witness is very important to the child in cases of what we call now abuse. Then it was called getting the shit beat out of you every day, for any reason, even "general principles." I learned that hitting kids only makes them angry and breaks down systematically the bond of love a child automatically feels for a parent. The child is put in a place where survival within oneself requires backing away into deeper and deeper resentment until it turns to hate.

In the register of deeds vault I was doing my work and a lawyer I knew was in there. Somebody he knew saw him and came into the space talking to him about a turn of events in his life. He lost his boy. The boy left and won't have anything to do with him. He was down in the heart about it. I felt nothing even remotely close to sympathy for him. I thought: treat somebody like shit and this is what you get. You had plenty of time to think about it. I left my parent situation and went as far as land allows, to the coast. Love for both parents was beat out of me by the time I was ten. From then on, the hitting and wisecracks only further alienated me. And of course, guess what. It's MY fault. It's always the kid's fault. The kid won't mind. I hated to let go of love for daddy and mommy, but to hold myself together, I needed to separate myself from them. My silent mantra upon being berated and knocked about was, You can control my body all you want, but you will never have access to my mind. And I shut myself off to them. Around them I wore a mask of obedience, and behind the mask I was myself. Didn't know who or what myself was, but I was I, and neither one of them would ever see who I am. Because no matter what I was or was not, it was in need of ongoing correction. Not guidance, but punishment. When I left them I never wanted to see them again the rest of my life, and I knew that. It wasn't an emotional reaction. I have seen them, but it's always been duty, like going to church.

I saw this little boy going through what I went through from that age. Watching him grow up was for me a review of my own relationship with my daddy. An anti-relationship is what it amounted to. I saw my little friend's daddy creating an anti-relationship with him, too. I chose to continue being a friend to his daddy, not out of respect, but because his wife told me that "when you're here, he's an angel." And I never saw anything angelic in the way he treated the kids. I thought then I can't do anything to stop the abuse, but I can be a witness for the kids, one who understands that they are right in not liking being beaten daily. And it's not their fault. By my presence they were treated less viciously. That was the best I could give them and still be able to know them. I'd think to them without saying it, just hang on, do the best you can, and bear with it til you reach the magic age of liberation, eighteen. Then you're free. Nobody can help you now. Social Services would only make it worse. Assassination works, but it's not an option. I watched my young friends bear with it. It brought back much of what I'd been through. What I learned was that I was not the problem. I was the target of an undiagnosed insane man who thought he was a rooster. I was better able to understand my own situation seeing it objectively outside myself. I was able to extend understanding to my young friends, and they got it. By "they" I mean his little sister too. We couldn't talk about it, but I believe telepathy flows over lines of love. 

How many times I heard, "I want some respect outta you!" All I could think was, Show me something to respect. It goes without saying, I was not allowed to say anything. That would be talking back. The biggest problem was that I dared not ever say what I thought about any of it. I could only speak a long string of expletives supporting the occasional word toward eventually completing a phrase. I remember with a laugh the time he said, "I outta hit you for what you're thinking." I laughed inside, thinking, If you really knew what I was thinking, you'd kill me. That I live tells me you don't have any idea what's in my mind. I was free. Like a good schizophrenic, I dove within, the only place where I was free. My body and my decision making were shut down. But my mind was my own. I recently saw a guy in a Norwegian movie, ELLING, who had been similarly driven within, alas so far in that he couldn't come back. It's a beautiful movie if you can tolerate subtitles. I only watch subtitled movies, so it's no problem for me.

My young friend whose childhood I witnessed for his mental health sake turned eighteen. Daddy rooster went apeshit at the loss of control, brought an ultimatum to me that I can't be friends with both of them. OK. It wasn't even a decision for me whose friend I was. That was the end of friendship with the daddy I had lost all respect for by then. I told young'un he had some years of inner wildman cut loose going off in all directions ahead of him. All I asked was he survive it. And he did. By now, he's turning thirty next birthday, and has turned out to be one of the very best friends of my life. I won't try to grade my friends in best, next-best, or anything like that. It is a love in the heart that is the same in every case, like loving your kids. In my adult life, my friends have the most value of anything else in my life. Friends come first. No two ways about it. Less than a year ago, somebody I know was throwing off on my young friend and I had to interrupt him and mention that he was the same as my own, so when it comes to taking sides, that's already set. What all this is coming down to is I was good to a kid and now that kid has grown into a friend I could trust absolutely, in the true sense of the old-fashioned, pre-facebook meaning of friend. He has a fabulous wife who loves him and kids that love him. He loves all of them. And I am happy to see he is able to have a life post-eighteen of effusive love in his own home.


*