His brother and father had gone to Denver for the weekend.That left him neighborhood-friendless as almost all his cohorts were still away someplace other than our street for spring break.
He, of course, had me.
“Can I build something with wood?” He says.
I’m about tobegin my once-every-three-year attempt to clean the garage of all manner of whatcha-ma-call-it’s no longer needed, wanted, or safe.Since I never, ever, finish this, I plan to pick up where I left off three years ago.
I mull his question. I’ll be in the garage anyway. It gets him out of the house. “Sure,” I say.
His plan starts small. But, true to his nature, grows into adding on to the tree house and before I know it he is yanking 2 X 4 X 10’s down, barely missing both our heads. The dog, at this point, hides.
“Honey – I can’t help you with all this today. We’d need the drill, the saw, the extension cords.”
“You could teach me how to use the drill.”
I consider this, and figure teaching him to drill holes and drive screws will buy me several hours. We drag the supplies out.It takes a long time.
The day is getting away from me.I feel it unfurling like a flag that is not hooked to any pole. It’s about to be lost, blown, wind-gone.
We try to drill holes. I realize that it takes most of my shoulder and upper body strength to get the three inch screws flat, and he is smaller than I am. I show him what stripping a screw means.There are lots of examples.
I don’t want to discourage him, but just don’t want to play. I sit back on my heels, drill dangling, while he pokes around in a winter’s worth of pine needles for the bit we’ve dropped.I stare through the trees; a car is passing slowly – our neighbors.
Trey is home. Halleluiah.
“Gabriel, Trey’s home. Want to do the tree-house later?” He’s off. He’s gone. He’s a bobbing-tail on a fast rabbit zinging toward Trey’s house.
Before I can put the drill away, I hear noises and the dog looks worried again. Both boys are in the garage with glue-guns, shovels, a bucket. They’ve got a ladder out. I’ve finally had it.
I call them to me: “Both of you! Get over here!”
Then I say “Stay OUT of the house. If you are going to dump water on anyone with the bucket, PUT it back. Unplug the glue gun when you are done or I will disappear it FOREVER and whatever you do, make sure it has absolutely NOTHING to do with me. Now go. Scoot.”
Bucketless, they scat.
They dig up a dirt clod, name him Steve the dirt clod. They add glue-gun googly plastic disks for eyes, a pipe cleaner for a mouth and yarn for hair. Startlingly it all sticks.
Next they go to various houses, place Steve the dirt clod on the welcome mat, ring the door bell and run. No one is home.
Finally they get someone to answer. They hide behind a car and watch the kind soul pick Steve-the-dirt-clod up and laugh; they’ve made contact. They come running home all a-twitter.
After printing out 6 copies of a LOST note listing Steve’s age, birth date, his proclivity for running away, and the request that, if found, the wayward dirt-clod can be left on the mailbox, they leave to post the notes. They include the house that acquired Steve the dirt clod by ding-dong-ditch-gift.
Hours later they find Steve the dirt clod on the mailbox.
Here’s thanking the neighbors for coming out of their house to play. I take their example to heart: if we tolerate the joy of children, we just may enter into it, remember it like we remember the smell of Coppertone, plastic balls, Razzle candy, Kool-Aid left in the sun all day, bee-thick and sticky.
Boy-joy, the moment before angst and hard growth, passes blink-whip fast.
This spring, should you see it spiriting by your house – on the faces of the boys or the girls – watch, participate even momentarily, even blink-whip fast. Joy is something to pause for – every time.
