A true family leader.
As such, I often find it necessary to call family meetings so that my wife Rachelle, and our nearly three year-old son, Jones, can discuss important issues as they arise. These are the minutes from a recent meeting:
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Michael: Okay, Meeting #36 is now in order. On Friday we’ve been invited to Claire’s for dinner. However, it’s not a simple matter. There are options, so please listen carefully. We can go in the afternoon, with Jones, and have a swim then an early dinner, getting back in time for Jones’ bedtime, or we can go over later, without Jones, and have an adult meal. Concerns? Preferences? Please speak freely, this is a safe space.
Rachelle: Do you know where the corkscrew is?
Michael: Since when did we start buying wine that needed a corkscrew?
Jones: I WANT TO WATCH THE SCARY SKULLS!!
Michael: Jones, we are having a family meeting right now. You can watch a video later.
Jones: NO!!!
Rachelle: Found it! It was in your desk drawer. Amidst several corks.
Michael: Well, that’s odd.
Rachelle: Not if you’re a secret drinker, it’s not.
Michael: That’s a pretty big glass you’re pouring yourself.
Jones: SCARY SKULLS!! SCARY SKULLS! SCARY SKULLS!!
Michael: No Jones! We’re having a meeting here, and there will be no videos until we’ve come to a decision about dinner on Friday! Also, you get stigmata from watching too many videos. It’s very bad for your eyes, and you want to be able to see everything, just like the Falcon that soars in the sky above, right?
Jones: WANT TO SEE SCARY SKULLS!!
Michael: Sweet Jesus child, okay, okay, okay.
Rachelle: The optometrist said that by feeding him an excessive diet of videos in order to avoid responsible parenting and gain his approval you were putting him at risk for astigmatism, not stigmata. Stigmata is the spontaneous manifestation of marks on the body that correspond to Jesus’ crucifixion wounds,
while astigmatism is an eye problem.
Michael: Are you sure?
Rachelle: Yes.
Michael: Patricia Arquette. She was in a movie called Stigmata, wasn’t she? Now I remember! She was a hot hair dresser in that one.
Rachelle: Yes.
Michael: Remember the bath scene? She was having a bath and then some invisible demon seizes her and she’s trashing about like mad, kicking and flailing her arms, yet somehow, somehow you still don’t see anything? So unrealistic.
Rachelle: Yes, I thought the exact same thing. Stigmata, a movie about a sex bomb with demonic possession, was unrealistic because you never got to see the lead actress entirely naked.
Michael: Okay, let’s get back on track here. We have to figure out how we’re going to approach Friday.
Jones: Can I have strawberries, mommy? I want strawberries.
Rachelle: After dinner, sweetie.
Michael: What is for dinner anyway?
Rachelle: It was your turn to get it.
Michael: Oh. Right. Yeah, I was going to make a special rice and carrot thing in the Instant Pot.
Rachelle: We will all look forward to it, and by the way, I spoke with Claire and we’re going to go over around three, have a swim and a light snack, and then return home in time for Jones’ bedtime at 7:30.
Michael: Oh.
Michael: All in favour?
Michael: Okay, motion passes.
Michael: I think I read somewhere that the Instant Pot was dangerous, like a bomb, so maybe we can have Swiss Chalet instead. They’re offering crispy chicken as a featured item now. The Family Pak comes with pickles and dinner rolls. It’s a pretty solid deal.
]]>On Sunday Rachelle and I took our son to his swimming class in Kensington Market.
Walking down the stairs to the pool there’s the heavy, nostalgic smell of chlorine drifting up to meet you, and when it does, something takes place that moves you from one point in time to many others.
Every pool you ever knew is conjured, and you remember feeling a little vulnerable and excited as your bare feet padded toward the pool. You remember diving boards and lifesavers, games and races, unknowably beautiful lifeguards perched above like trophies, and the light catching the water as it swells and dips, glinting.
Everything refracted, everything reframed.
But on this day there were about six parents– each one with their tiny, precious child– forming a semi-circle around the instructor. So comfortable and confident in the water, she was like some mythical sea creature who spoke only in a song.
“Three blind mice, three blind mice, splash your hands, splash your hands,” she encouraged, and all the children kicked and splashed– and that, the water leaping up, became the physical manifestation of their joy. To witness this could have been the instructor’s great passion, the love to which she had given her life over.
And Jones was so happy. Excited, he shouted along to all the nursery rhyme instructions. He was game for anything. Even Torpedo Time, when the toddlers are submerged under water and then pushed through a hoop by a parent only to explode out of the water like the radiant beasts they are. Rachelle, who was smiling so broadly her face could have split in two, swung Jones through the water and then lifted him as strong and high as she could, before swinging him back down and then throwing him up in the air. And Jones, now soaring, was above it all, glowing in a weightless paradise for a moment, before falling back to us and into his mother’s arms.
The ocean is a colour of an unbelievable perfection.
The sun is shining and there is a clarifying breeze off the water.
Confident and pretty girls, each one with a naturally flirty smile, pose for photographs that will soon appear on Facebook. Other girls, with accents as sweet and naïve as a romance movie, have just arrived from England. These girls are so pale and young that they look vulnerable, as if they need somebody there to wrap a towel around their shoulders.
After about 20 minutes an announcement is made that the Captain has an urgent message for one of the passengers, Samara. Looking as if she knows she’s about to be crowned beauty queen, Samara, smiling back at her friends, coyly approaches. It’s her 21st birthday! She ‘s given a pink sash and has her photograph taken with her two giggling sisters, a picture of joy and beauty she will return to for the rest of her life.
The boat anchors for lunch and Jet Skis, like predators, circle the boat, the young men beckoning to the girls, “Let me take you for a ride, sister.” There is snorkeling and swimming on offer, and everybody, some swinging off a rope, other diving off a board, splash into the water. As if at the center of dance circle, each one is briefly the focus of all attention, and they are all so young and perfect that they’re practically emitting light.
A pretty German woman with a warm and sweet face has taken her mother on this cruise. The older woman is probably in her mid-70s, and it was clearly difficult for her to get in the water but she did. And when she arose into the throng of 20 year olds, all screaming and laughing and dancing, she, too, became young and luminous, and the look of shared joy, satisfaction and love that passed between daughter and mother stopped time right there in it’s beautiful tracks.
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