The Girl and My Ear

Affection is a funny thing.

It’s a great thing, of course. But, it takes many forms, especially when it comes to physical affection. That’s what makes it great. It can be downright quirky, which makes it that much more precious and something to be celebrated.

With the Girl, her quirky token of affection was adopted early, and every once and a while, manifests itself even today. I’m talking about my ear.

As many of you parents know very well, boot camp, basic training of parenthood happens on the job, late at night, early in the morning, and on very, very little sleep of the very interrupted variety. It was during these hours that I feel that the initial bond between the Girl and I was first strengthened. Knowing this, at the time, was what kept me going.

I would pace back and forth in the half-light of early morning, sometimes humming a tune in counterpoint to tired infant cries and fussing. But, all the while, the little hand would extend, the perfect pink fingers would uncurl, and latch on, gently, to my ear.

To a baby, I suppose it’s the dad version of physical attachment – the ear. After all, it’s pretty conveniently placed when your dad is carrying you.  And since there isn’t another functional pair of breasts available, the ear as an object of comfort will do.

Since that period, particularly when she’s tired, the ear provides that same level of comfort. Just before bedtime, and just after hair-brushing while sitting on my lap, her little hand often drifts to my ear, as it did when she was only a few months old.  And to me, it translates into something that tells me that my physical presence to her means warmth, trust, and safety even now. All going according to plan, then.

I like to think that later on, my ear will serve a similar purpose, although perhaps in another way. One thing I strive for is to ensure that she always feels safe with me, that my ear will be hers later on, when she needs to talk about anything – her fears, her doubts, her outrages, her joys, and the things about which she is curious.

My ear will be available for the things she needs to ask me that are hard to ask; a ride home when she’s had too much to drink, or when a date has gone badly with that person I suspected was bad for her, when the people she’s with are too drunk to drive her home, or when she’s making a call from the police station.

Whatever the occasion, my ear will always be hers. She claimed it from the start, after all.

The Girl and Hair-brushing

The green brush I bought at London Drugs, and a sometime implement of (very unintended) torture. The irony is that the Girl picked it out herself. The brush I mean, not the torture.

The Girl has long hair, still basically of the sort that she had when she was a baby. This means that it is of a colour that is of undetermined hue, so full of highlights as it is; auburn, brown, blonde, all live together in glorious harmony on that head. It’s as if it’s still deciding what colour to land on.

I suspect that it will darken to chestnut, or perhaps darker. Both her mother and I are of Celtic origin (although I’m Anglo-Celtic, and her mum is of Franco-Celtic stock). And both of us had the same colour of hair when we were kids, too. Dark hair is inevitable.

But, the greater issue is that the Girl’s hair is extremely fine. This is also a genetic inevitability, or if not inevitable than certainly not surprising.  My hair, what remains anyway, is also extremely fine, picking up any, any, trace of static electricity in the air.

The problem though, is that she may have inherited her Mum’s natural wave and tendency to curl, which means that her hair is also easily tangled. So, hair-brushing is important. Very important. But, often it’s a bit of an ordeal, too.

Now, there are scores and scores of anti-tangling products out there, and lots of expensive bottles of shampoo too, to get the tangles out, or at least discourage them.  But, for various reasons I won’t get into here, the Girl doesn’t always get her bath at night before she goes to sleep on her luxurious locks. Hair-brushing doesn’t often get done either on these nights, I suspect. It’s easy to inextricably twin one activity and another, after all. It’s certainly easier to brush her (very, very prone to static) hair when it’s wet. Although those products work, there’s only so much they can do if the hair remains unbrushed.

So, when I brush her hair, sometimes it’s a long, drawn-out exercise in unpleasantness, and in tears. I hate it. I mean, I like the act of brushing her hair. It’s an intimate act, a loving act – when the tangles are out, and I can do it gently, without the painful snags. But, I hate making her cry.

My vote, of course, would be to have her hair cut much shorter. I’m not talking G.I Jane, or anything. But, maybe to her shoulders, as opposed to down her back. But, the Girl is (as has been established) closer to the Princess end of the girl-spectrum. Her long hair is attached to her identity, I think, just as it is to everyone else’s in this culture of ours. She should have a say in how she wears it, as young as she is. I plan to keep that policy when she gets older and decides to get a mohawk, or whatever late 2010s-2020s version of that will be.

But, I still hate making her cry. I don’t particularly want her to have memories of me yanking (although I don’t have to yank for it to hurt…) at her hair, tangled up in a brush. But frankly too, I don’t want her going around with a bird’s nest on her head either.  I suppose there is the presentation aspect in place here.  Maybe that doesn’t really matter, ultimately. Maybe it’s more about me, than it is about her on that front.

I don’t know.

Maybe this is just about me needing to let go a bit, which is an exercise I will need to engage in as long as I’m a parent, I think. Maybe too, I need to realize that I can’t work out every kink and tangle for her that comes along, whether it’s hair-brushing, or managing a broken heart. One can only be there when the crying does happen, and do what one needs to do with what is on hand in any given moment, even if it’s tough to do so.

Onto every head, some tangles must snag.

The Girl and Public Transit

Image courtesy of Atomic Taco

At the time of this writing, I have no car. I am on the verge of the edge of the precipice of buying one. I’m not entirely thrilled with the prospect. The expense is sort of forced, for one, which I resent. And another, I think individual car use isn’t exactly a 21st century strategy, what with the end of the age of cheap fuel in sight (that’s me being optimistic) and the rise of global warming a very real concern, no matter what the right wing, oil company-supporting TV pundits down south say.

Buying a car will present some advantages, I must admit. I’ll get to see my Mum a lot more than I do, and the Girl her Nana. I suppose too that certain simple pleasures will be enjoyed, too. It’ll be nice to play music while I drive, and to not worry too much about things like rushing to bus stops and budgeting huge amounts of time to getting not very far, all things considered, due to a lack of public transit coverage between my house, and the Girl’s Mum’s place.

The Girl herself will be happy about all of this. She’s been on me to get a car for years. But, I can’t help but be a little wistful anyway. Since her mum and I split, a lot of the bonding time between the Girl and I have been on and around catching buses and riding SkyTrains.  Her perception of where I am compared to where she is was measured by the mantra “A bus, a SkyTrain, and another bus”.

We’ve taken several routes to get to where we need to go. When the Girl was attending Happy Farm Daycare in Surrey, we took a walk down a shady lane, across a schoolyard with an absurd amount of chain-link fences criss-crossing it that made it resemble more a prison than a school, and onto the 321; King George Station, onto the front car to see the track flowing outward before us. From here, it’s onto New Westminster Station (with much curiosity about Columbia Street Station, where we got off to get a toothbrush one time). Then, a bus; the 123 Brentwood, to my house.

154 bus: a "Sweet Chariot" (image courtesy of Stephen Rees)

The 340 from North Delta is one of (only!) three buses that cross the Fraser from Delta and Surrey and onto my side of the river, only one of which, incredibly, actually stops at the SkyTrain on the Expo line during regular service hours! This route was something of a Sweet Chariot to the Girl and I on trips from one side of the river to the other, and therefore much beloved. I used to call the Number 15 bus in London that – the Sweet Chariot –  when I lived there, taking me from the East End (Poplar) to Central London (Charing Cross Station).

There is something about your bus that delivers something that can’t be replicated when you just climb into your car. It’s that feeling when you’re tired, it’s raining, or it’s getting dark, and your bus comes along, when you feel that the universe is taking care of you.

Other notable bus routes as ridden by the Girl and I: 155, 154, 101, 106, 312, 319, 100, 99B-line. They are Sweet Chariots, all; Scott Road stn, New West stn, 22nd St stn, and on and on.

The Girl has complained about trotting to bus stops, of being rushed, and forced into a bus schedule. I know how she feels. But, one thing that’s come out of that is the experience of riding buses and trains with fellow citizens, of taking advantage and being the benefactor of what I consider to be one of the hallmarks of civilization; accessible and affordable public transit.

But, I do have to get a car.

The logistics of seeing the Girl during weekday evenings, and of guaranteeing that the time I spend with her, especially during the week,  is no longer characterized by me watching the clock rather than enjoying that time, is becoming something of a concern. Given the state of the transit system right now, it’s just not sustainable for me to keep schlepping to the bus with her and all of her luggage, and getting her over the river in a narrow window of time afforded only by limited service after the sun goes down.

22nd Street Station: a transit hub for the Girl and I (image courtesy of Dennis Sylvester Hurd)

But, in the two years I’ve managed it, The Girl has become a seasoned transit rider. She’s fascinated by maps, and routes and always asks where we are and where we’re going whenever she sees one. She knows that certain lines take us into town, and others take us over the bridge. She knows how to manage her bag, and where to place it when she takes her seat. She sits still. She looks out the window. She takes in the scenery. Despite her protestations, she loves the journey, the quest.

I don’t know how this will affect her as she grows. But, I hope it will encourage her to be unafraid to explore the wider world, taking a pack on her back and going out to see what she can see. Who knows? Maybe the Number 15 bus in London will be a Sweet Chariot to her, too, as it was to her Dad.

But, one thing that transit has taught me is that it’s OK to wait. It’s OK to share space with other people. And it’s OK to spend time in thought, or deep inside a book, as bus wheels and train tracks hurtle underneath.

It’s the zen of public transit, the art of revelling in solitude in the middle of the hustle and bustle. It is, in a way, a way to peace of mind. So, whether she goes no further than a few stops in all of her life, I hope that she gains this.

The Girl and ‘Great’

“How are you doing?”

“Great.”

Not “Great!”, but just “great.”

It’s stated as a matter of fact. I don’t know where she learned it. It’s a pat answer, an answer that it designed to deflect any further inquiry. She holds a lot in, does the Girl – like her dad.

She hates being seen to cry. She hates to cry in general. Her mother and I see her trying not to cry when something upsets her. She kind of stares upward, and her mouth takes on this austere shape. Once we saw the pattern, we call her on it. But, her instinct is to hold it in.

Once again, I don’t know where she would have got it other than from her parents, which I suppose isn’t a stretch. When I was a kid, I’d hold things in, too. I didn’t want to cause anyone any trouble by showing them that I was upset – including my parents. My being upset, or unhappy, I knew, had an impact on them. So, I took the bullet.  I suspect that the same is true for the Girl, to a certain extent. I mean, we all have to do that at times. But, it can become a habit, and then a pattern.

So, the challenge is for me to let her know that it’s OK to cry when you’re upset. It’s OK to say to someone that they’ve made you angry, even if it’s your dad. It’s OK to make trouble, and be inconvenient, when it’s appropriate to how you’re feeling. Because what I’d hate to have happen is for her to feel obligated to suppress her needs, her feelings, for someone else’s continual benefit.  Even if it’s mine. Maybe especially if it is.

Of course, perhaps a parallel challenge for me is to stop doing this type of thing myself; stop saying ‘great’, and acting ‘great’, when things just aren’t.

Two bright green eyes are watching.

The Girl and Marbles

Clockwise from the bottom: "Bee", "Tiger", "Thunder", "Stripey", and "Water"

How long have kids played with marbles?

With the advent of interactive web applications, portable video games, and all of the bells and whistles that technology has delivered to the Girl’s  generation, you know that certain things are timeless. Marbles is one of those.

I can’t remember where she got hers. I’m pretty sure it was at a birthday party of some kind, and that her marbles were a part of a loot bag. But, the Girl owns a quintet of marbles, which she keeps in a red velvet bag.

It seems to me that the simpler the object, the more possibilities there are with playing with them, or even just keeping them with you.  There are more chances for an object to become important, if they have no one purpose for existing. The Girl plays with her marbles in the traditional way. But, other times, she takes them out of the red velvet bag, and just holds them. You can hear the click clicking of them as she sits with them.

She’s named them, too. That’s when you know there’s attachment, that they’ve been given a certain personality.

Funny, I don’t think she’s named her DS …

The Girl and Being Tall

When she was born, the Girl was a respectable 21″ long. So was I, actually, as it turns out. There was no reason to suspect that she would be outside of the average. I’m not short – about average. The Girl’s Mum is kind of short-ish – 5’3″.

But, nearly every time she meets someone new, and they find out how old she is, it’s “Wow. I thought she was at least seven years old.”

She’s tall. 47″; a little less than four feet tall at age five. I think it must be recessive genes, or something. She’s a second row Girl in her kindergarten class. So, the age of the piggy-back ride is over, methinks. That was kind of a hard adjustment. More about that in another post.

The great thing I’m noticing is that even if she doesn’t sit like a tiny bundle in my lap like she used to, she still crawls into my lap without even a second thought. That’s a bonus for me, and the only thing that counts for now. I am aware that this level of unselfconscious affection will have a limited shelf life the older she gets.

Like when she becomes a teenager.

I suppose there is the question of school dances, and towering over her date. But, whatever. If her height continues into her womanhood, I like to think that she can give her Dad a piggy-back, should the need arise.

The Girl and the Love Note

The Girl’s Nana J and Poppa in Ontario sent her a Valentines’ Day card, which she greatly appreciated. She appreciated it because  of sentiments of love from a few provinces over. And she appreciated it because they very thoughtfully included a picture of the three of them, taken on the Girl’s fifth birthday some months ago when they last visited.

But, she also appreciated the card because it gave her ideas of her own. When I wasn’t looking, she bent the card backwards and wrote a note to me, hid it, and then presented it to me as a surprise. Here it is.

When I read it, I held her for a long time. Tears of happiness on my part were involved. She saw the tears, and I thought maybe she’d misunderstand, and thought I was upset. But, she didn’t say anything. She looked at me thoughtfully and smiled, and let me hold her.

I am the father of a thoughtful, loving girl.  That is all.

The Girl and Shapeshifting

I am constantly amazed by the Girl, specifically her imagination and the way she expresses it.

It’s not just that what she’s expressing is creative, inspiring, innocent, and vital. It’s that it can be so easily connected to something bigger – like the myths that drive our culture, that I’m not entirely sure comes just from watching TV or reading books. Myths, of course, are never just about the details. It’s what’s under them that make them so powerful.

In this particular case, I’m talking about shapeshifting, which is a powerful concept in mythology, and a seemingly natural state of being for children. Maybe because they’ve had less exposure to outside stimulation, they’re more attuned to its primeval origins . I don’t really know. It’s a wonderful mystery, like so many things in childhood are.

The Girl is a shapeshifting virtuoso.

“Dad, I’m a cat. But, a good cat. Not like Daisy when she gets frisky.“

The purring starts, the meowing, the curling up on the floor, the pretend licking herself (only recently has it become pretend, mind…). She is a cat.

“It’s bath time, love.”

“Cats don’t like to take baths. They don’t like the water.”

“Really? What are you going to do? You need to take your bath.”

“I’ll be a salamander when I’m in the bath, then I’ll be me when I brush my teeth. Then, I’ll be a cat again.”

“Sounds good.”

In the bath, she ducks her head under the water. She pretends to swish her tail. She slides back and forth in the bath. She is a salamander in a shallow pond warmed by a high, tropical sun.

She follows her plan to the letter. I help her brush her teeth. When I brush her hair, she’s changed back into a cat.  I read her a story – about a cat, no less. And when I turn out the light and kiss her on the cheek, she purrs.

Shapeshifters in stories are often the result of curses. Sometimes, the themes of deception are pretty prominent, too. But, in this context, I think the idea of the Girl’s imagination allowing her to take any form she chooses isn’t really about that. It’s about her ability to adapt to new situations.

Cats don’t like baths? No problem. I’ll be a salamander.

I think that my generation tends to be more overprotective of our kids than we perhaps should be. We forget the supple nature of a child’s perception, of the lessons that a child can take from nature, from the fertile ground of an imaginative brain, and shape their own reality to help them get through an often inhospitable world. It certainly reminds me that play isn’t just play.  It ‘s about testing the limits of perception, and the supposed immutability of the world as we adults know it. That it happens to be fun is a big bonus, of course.

Once again, it takes me observing the Girl to see this in such clear terms, which makes the shapeshifting, or the role-taking, something other when it comes to who is the teacher, and who is being taught.

The Girl and the Winter Picnic

The weekend before last, I took the Girl on a picnic in Queen’s Park in New Westminster. It was her idea!

We put some sandwiches in a bag, a couple of apples, some baby carrots, and off we went. It was a sunny day, although cold. Around here, if it’s sunny, you go out.

Here’re some pictures!