Morning Reports
DAY 29
Jan 29: Jet-lag
I went Missing in Action today. It’s 22:43 exactly, and I just sat down to write my late afternoon report.
I could say it was the flu, the kids that kept me from doing my deeds, the schedule that got flipped on its head or the creative process that got stuck… it was none of that. I just kept delaying the moment I would sit down, for no particular reason.
I have a mixed bag of nuts in my mind.
My kids and their weird sense of humour, the time that I got to fan-nerd over Terry Pratchett and my early obsession with comic-books and new age music.
I had mentioned that sometimes Alex and Noah come up with stuff that really have me “fists-on-table” laughing internally. That’s not unusual for a parent… everyone’s child is always annoyingly the best.
But it’s becoming a bit outrageous.
Noah has been gently telling off other adults when they yell around him “because the loud voice is distracting him from his quiet time”.
Alex has been singing “balls, balls, balls, get ready for a good time!” and wishing his brother “Bon apeTIT!”, to covertly call him a baby (because, you know, babies feed from breasts).
LOL.
But also the mandatory “never say this outside of this family unit” with an unconvincing serious face. I can’t have them walk around in society shutting people up, or wishing them to enjoy their boob lunch. I’d go straight to parent counseling for bringing up immoral children.
It would be unfair, they’re really nice kids otherwise.
The thing is I’ve been quite liberal with the subjects that we talk about at home… there’s almost no taboo conversation. My position has always been that if something is on their mind it’s perfectly acceptable to bring it up. I want that communication channel as unobstructed as possible. And I often like to give it a lighter turn.
Death, sex, beliefs, love, night monsters and big questions about life. If they can think about it, they can sustain a conversation.
The only time that I have had to censor them was when they purposely use offense, or emotions as a threat. I’ve explained a few times that I find it dishonourable.
But I think I overreacted a little the day that Noah got angry at Alex and, in a fit of hurt pride, said he wanted to kill himself…
That day I really felt I had deeply failed as a parent. And as I write this piece I still feel a horrible sting through the heart.
I knew he didn’t fully comprehend what he was saying then, and meant it as a way to add a very dramatic turn.
But I had to sit them both down because those words were truly terrifying to hear. I told them it was no laughing matter, that no form of harming was acceptable, and that you can’t use anyone’s life as a way to “save face” in an argument. Absolute no-no from now on.
But I couldn’t clearly explain why suicide, among so many other accepted topics, was too serious of a subject to joke around. I guess it just hit closer to home because I had to shake that idea off many times when I was growing up.
The whole point of this open communication has always been to prevent them from feeling internally isolated. So I’ll have to think of a way to bring back the subject without the heaviness I managed to convey.
Man this report took an unexpected dark turn!
My childhood was quite different. There was rarely any mention of serious human subjects. It was both very innocent and full of unexpressed shadows. That was the usual tone in families around us as well, albeit a lot of shit was hidden under the surface.
Death, psychological pain, sexual abuse, broken love, and disbelief were lurking everywhere. And my parents never really communicated head-on about these events… besides struggling on their own to digest them.
What we did have was travel. And music. And comic books.
Those are my three fondest memory boxes.
Car trips, walks in the desert, playing wolves in the southern forests, swims in freezing lakes, ocean rumbles, waking up in the middle of nowhere, inventing new contraptions to make tea, freaking out at night with the sounds of trees cracking with the wind.
Or arriving back from school, and seeing my dad lying down on the sofa, deeply immersed in his latest musical acquisition (Klaus Nomi was weird).
Or finding the secret comic book stash, and reading all of the albums before I had earned them with good school reports. And spending days next to the fireplace reading the entire Lieutenant Blueberry series. And then Valerian, and Balade au bout du Monde, Les Passagers du Vent, Sambre, Blake and Mortimer, etc, etc, etc…
Now that’s a thought I can keep as a warm goodnight kiss.
Terry will have to wait for another time.
