March 27, 2005
Sure I talk. I talk about all sorts of things. The problem isn’t remembering to talk, the problem is remembering just what it was I talked about.
* * *
Relationships are fine. I’ve had several myself.
The trouble with relationships is that people are too much like stones. You can stack together any two stones, but finding two that can build a wall, that’s the hard part.
* * *
I’ve thought of another blog - Scrine.
It will be a collection of lonely, single sentences, all submitted by me and whoever else wants to join the club. Yes, that’s right. Members to Scrine will have publishing privleges. Our single sentences will gather around and stare at each other. Maybe they’ll do something else, but we don’t know that yet. Maybe images will pop up like a water cooler, and our sentences will gather around that, but we don’t know that yet either.
Maybe nothing will happen. The future is always a mystery.
* * *
A storyteller’s skill can often be measured by the length of time his or her children continue to believe in certain lies, such as Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. There are many, many other lies equally valuable in measuring the storyteller’s skill. These are but two obvious examples.
Keith, I believe everything you say.
As they say in Chinese, it is both my honor and my responsibility to do so.
The chinese also have a great saying about “standing in front of the urinal and not pissing.” I’m not sure how that’s apropos, but consider it my first contribution to the new blog.
Let’s pretend we found this in a fortune cookie:
American truth flow like Chinese man bladder.
I never lied to my child about Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. What, in your eyes, does that make me?
And my third grader still appears to believe in both Santa and the Bunny. Does this make me a decent spinner of stories, a good liar, or both?
I want to say that you are doing everything perfectly.
But then, I’m partial, considering my own third grade son is still a devout believer in so many false things, Santa and the Bunny included.
Will they soon hate us for our intricate lies?
I truly hope not, although I have been wondering lately if I should confess the truth or wait for one of his peers to break it to him.
Even after Santa and the Easter Bunny had bit the dust I kept the tooth fairy going great. After all, no kid who goes to bed clutching her pillow could ever believe anything but magic could get the tooth out of the sealed envelope under her head and replace it with a couple bucks. Certainly not one of her bumbling, noisey parents.
And then she found a half dozen teeth in the back of mom’s jewelry box. She didn’t buy it for a minute that tooth fairies always leave the teeth for the parents.
(sigh) The end of innocence.
Hear this story and you will know something about my son.
He believes in the Tooth Fairy as well, but has only given away one tooth to her/him/whatever it is. He saves the rest in a little bag. As he puts it - “saving up for something big.”
For some reason, the little bag rides around in my car with us.
In all his practicality, my son was dubious about the tooth fairy. “What would anyone want my baby teeth for?” he asked. Glibly, I replied that the Tooth Fairy is very environmentally conscious and recycles them. They go to the babies who need new teeth, of course. This had the added benefit of grossing him out as he wondered who had his teeth before him.
I’m almost ashamed to say it but I was such a good storyteller/liar that my kids believed in Santa Claus until middle school. This year they are in 6th and 7th grade ... it was the first year they didn’t make a production of leaving a plate of healthy snacks for both Santa and his reindeer. I’m not sure if they suddenly decided it was a myth but didn’t want to disappoint me or what but I found that I felt quite melancholy sitting there after they went to bed on Christmas Eve.
I missed the snacks. I missed their innocence.
(the Tooth Fairy, however, is still alive and well ... )