Being Twelve

I tell myself it’s a compliment when my child volunteers me for things. Like the time she signed me up to bring fruit salad to a seventh grade class party that was happening the next morning. She must see me as reliable. And it’s true that the last minute notice wasn’t a problem, since we live two blocks from a handful of grocery stores.

I rode to the store before dinner and returned home with a flat of strawberries bungeed to the back of my bike. I got back from a run the next morning just in time to deliver the strawberries to her classroom.

“You’re wearing that?” she asked. I was wearing the sweatpants she hated. By my standards they weren’t bad. I had thrown away the pair that were six sizes too big, because no amount of comfort justified pants that big. The sweatpants I had kept actually fit me.

None of this mattered to Carly. “Aren’t you going to change?” she asked.

“I just got back from a run,” I said. “This is what I’m wearing.”

I waited in the driveway while she ran back inside for a jacket. When she reappeared scowling, Blue came up behind her with a look of glee on his face. Once you hit your forties, you're usually comfortable enough with yourself to laugh quietly at your child’s embarrassment over your apparent shortcomings.

Still I offered to ride ahead. I saw the conflict cross her face, the desire to be rid of me at the same time she knew I had the cache of strawberries.

I ended up letting her go first, my daughter in a green corduroy jacket, rolled up bell bottom jeans with her cute little butt, a shocking pink helmet she’d bought with her own allowance to declare her femininity, and a bright green cruiser she’d gotten for her twelfth birthday. The contrast was notable; I plodded along behind in my sweatpants, a baggy sweatshirt, and my hair still damp with sweat under my baseball cap. But at my age all that sweat just made me feel good.

“You lock your bike, I’ll go ahead of you to your classroom,” I assured her when we got to her school.

But I couldn’t find her classroom, and had to stand in the quad and wait for her. She pointed, and I walked toward what I thought was the right room. I walked in on a group of eighth grade boys from her surf club, their longish hair side-parted like something straight out of The Endless Summer. Translation: cute boys. If my wandering in the quad had embarrassed her, imagine how she felt about my stumbling upon a bunch of cute older boys.

Once I rode home from the grocery store dangerously close to the time school let out, with a forty pound bag of dogfood, a twelve pack of beer, and two sixteen packs of toilet paper. I wobbled home with this mountain of supplies, making it to the house just two minutes before a boy she liked rode by. Had I been any later, he would have seen not one but two mega packs of toilet paper strapped to my rack, and the packaging which bragged: “Sixteen GIANT rolls! The same as FORTY regular rolls!”

That time Carly had been spared the humiliation.

Finally I found the right classroom and delivered the strawberries. As I rode away I thought about our conversation. “Nobody cares,” I’d told her when she scowled at my sweatpants. “Everybody cares,” she had said. And when you’re twelve, it’s true. Everyone cares.

Navigator

When people visit Eliot's classroom, where at least one child is making strange noises while another swings wildly on the therapeutic swing, they see my son with his French Irish good looks sitting quietly, and they think he is out of place. But if they stayed a while they would see he is not.

Eliot has quirky behaviors. He will be sailing along when something (not always detectable to us) sets him off. Once before he could talk, the lighting in the grocery store upset him and he shrieked his way through the checkout line.

By the time he was nine he talked constantly, but in most ways he was more six than nine. Teaching him to read, or getting him to do any difficult task, was challenging at best. When I told him he needed to learn to read so that one day when he took his girlfriend to dinner he would be able to read the menu, he said, “I’m not taking her out to dinner. I’m taking her to the movies.”

One Sunday something in Eliot went haywire. Barometric pressure? Too much dairy? It was not always easy to tell.

That night we went out to dinner. After years of practice, Eliot had the “going out to dinner” routine down, which was a good thing, because not having to cook or clean up while being served soothing alcoholic beverages was one of my favorite Sunday evening activities. But this particular Sunday it was amazing we made it through the meal without an incident. On the way home in the car, he started beating up on Carly.

As soon as we got off the freeway, Blue pulled over so Eliot and I could walk home. This was a tactic we often used. When we went to a restaurant within walking distance, we did it no matter what, and Eliot showed me the way home. Eliot had proven himself an excellent navigator, and I preferred walking to driving as much as he did.

Although we were ten blocks from home when Blue dropped us off, it was the first time I had seen Eliot unsure of the way. But I did not tell him, he pointed in the right direction, and off we went. Until we reached Carly’s school, he seemed unsure, yet he always pointed us in the right direction.

Now, I can find my way home from anywhere in my stomping grounds, but take me out of my familiar surroundings and I am lost. Blue, on the other hand, need only visit a place once and he can find his way. I have been grateful many times for the fact that, of all the traits inherent in Eliot’s genetic makeup, his father’s navigating skills are among them. As he led me home, I hoped one day if I was not there and he was lost, this exercise would help him.

He took one look at Carly’s school, gasped, and said, “This way! Can we cross here? Come on!”

When he had guided me across the street he said, “You know the way?! I show you!” And he took off running.

As I walked behind him in the dark, it occurred to me that most people walk right arm swinging with the left leg, left arm swinging with the right leg. This is the sequence for those whose brains and bodies are intact. This is not how Eliot ran. His left arms swung, but his right arm jerked out perpendicular to his torso. A perfect metaphor for who he was. Some parts intact and seemingly normal, other parts jerking away in an unconventional direction. And so in his own unique way, Eliot showed me the way home.