The fates gave us rain, and we stayed at home pretending it was November. We went outside in the weepy drizzle and turned the sweet-smelling compost, added some red earthworms, and swung in the front yard all morning long.
The Young Man’s Leisure Guide, Ch.1: On Enjoying a Driveway, Installment No. 1
Ford is practicing basic board maneuvers. He circumnavigates the driveway in rough squares of measured effort, propelling himself faster each time. His legs are slightly bent and his form conveys assurance and ease, but his arms carry some tension. They coil upwards toward lifted shoulders, bearing fear’s weight in two invisible buckets. All the while, joy and satisfaction beams through his proud, young face.
Chas soars above the ground, speeding faster than the sound of his rolling bearnings. He clicks over twigs in the driveway, sometimes rolling over the board as it stops dead beneath him. He laughs, I laugh. His palms are black from asphalt soot and his nubby toes are fearlessly worn smooth and black, too. I can hear him acting out an action scene, his voice trails behind him as he flies across the blacktop, exaggerated cries of help and pleas for mercy, ending with a thud as he slams into the woodpile, throwing himself in a heap onto the ground. He lies spread-eagle beside his skateboard, looking up into the walnut boughs above him, swaying in the hot afternoon breeze.
After a three minute meditation, watching the leaves flutter and sway, he mounts his hovercraft and soars back across the driveway, his own little cosmos
to flail himself into the jasmine, in another utterly romantic gesture of bravado. His heart just couldn’t beat any louder.
Ford and I laugh again. We follow no particular path, only minding not to run in to each other. Sometimes we glide just so close, knock knuckles, smile again. There is no two o’clock school traffic on our street to mark our passage through the afternoon. Chas is in his own world but he sometimes shows us where he’s been. Sometimes he shows us where he’s going. And then, like us, you can catch him just gelling with the afternoon. At that moment you know he’s off any agenda and he’s just somewhere in the middle of a summer afternoon in the driveway.
Museum Possible
Above my expectations, the MOMA trip was something I can’t believe we didn’t try sooner. But our mental armor was strong that day. We pared the visit down to a Braque and that huge dog painting in the second floor foyer (hell if I remember; I was too busy trying to convince Chas that, even though the paint looked like dabs of toothpaste, he indeed could not touch it)…
And then, the Matisse exhibit. For both boys, a treat: nothing but nummies, in all dimensions. Having found our medium, our tether to real life, we were set. All we had to do was circulate smoothly without shouting too many body parts and we’d eventually hit the outdoor mezzanine. It was perfect! Couldn’t have dreamed up a better recess.
After knocking out the ya-ya’s, we had pizza downstairs.
The MOMA heats up a good pint-sized pepperoni pizza and the kids devoured it. We swilled a few pints of beer and then Damon and Dwight (Damon’s brother) took the kids across the street to Yerba Buena Gardens so that I could see the rest of the Matisse exhibit in peace.
I think the kids, mostly Ford, would have appreciated that second half of the exhibit, being a bold departure from the previous body of work. Matisse had begun cutting pieces of paper to rearrange in composition for his larger paintings. And then, down the hall, the “Jazz” series of prints, all laid out on the white table–what have we all come to know better as the work of Matisse?
Still, what’s best for the boys is plenty or room in the schedule for freeform fun. And fortunately, what’s best for them worked out to be best for me, too. Thanks, D 🙂
