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During last July’s 5.8 earthquake, 3-year-old Bronwyn told her 1-year-old sister, “We’re going for a wiggle.” READ MORE
Fatherhood
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My wife and I are standing on the lawn at a new outdoor mall and the grand-opening band is playing "smooth jazz." Our 3-year-old son is standing 6 inches from the drummer, lost in the music, trying to appropriate the man's sticks. Three times I pick my son up and relocate him. Three times he returns to the drummer. When I pick him up, he writhes like a hooked trout. People are watching. I am not entirely sure they think this is cute.. Two months ago, I was struck by some sort of fever and bought my son a drum set. All winter long, he had been creating rather impressive rhythms by beating a pair of drinking straws on our pots and pans and upturned garbage cans. His movements were fluid - fast here, slow there, just the right motion in the wrist. The kid didn't just bang, he played. He listened to music, caught the beat, echoed it. We took him to basketball games and afterwards he hummed the home team's fight song while tapping it out on his makeshift percussion kit. So one day, when I had some time on my hands, I went to a music store and told the salesman about my remarkable child. The salesman said the word "prodigy." I flushed with pride. He showed me a junior drum kit, real birch with a blue metallic finish: a base, a snare, a tom, a cymbal and a hi-hat. I fell in love with it. I thought about it all night. I went back, my son in tow, and bought it. A lady with 3 kids looked at us with narrowed eyes, turned away and announced to no one in particular, "I think all children should learn piano before anything else." Our home became a very loud place. In the mornings and evenings we began asking our son not to play. We tried to convince him to keep playing with straws instead of sticks. When we were on the phone, we occasionally yelled at him. When we did this, he looked back at us, wide-eyed, and said, "Oh, you don't want me to play the drums? OK." This made us feel like very low creatures. The more he played, the more he loved to play, and we couldn't help loving that he loved it - a nice thought, if we could hear ourselves think. ...The sky goes milky purple, a soft wind swirls in the plaza, our son's bedtime comes and goes. The smooth jazz falls silent, the crowd scatters. The drummer starts packing his things. We approach, thank him for the music, tell him about the drum set in our house. "I feel sorry for you," he says. When we get home, our son, inspired and delighted, picks up his sticks and plays. Maybe we're just caught up in the music tonight, but - funny thing - we don't feel sorry for ourselves at all. Ask us again in the morning. Greg Blake Miller is a writer and college instructor in Las Vegas. The UC Irvine graduate is a longtime contributor to Churm Publishing, Inc. |
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