Thursday, October 22, 2009

Oldies




When you have the flu like I've had the last few days and are trying to sleep in spite of aches and chills, it's not exactly welcome to have a tape loop of Judy Garland singing, "Clang, clang, clang, went the trolley, ding, ding, ding went the bell" running through your head. But that's what I get for watching "Meet Me in St. Louis" with the kids twice in one week.

I have loved old movies since I was a little girl, so it's been absolute heaven for me to share old movies with my kids. So far we've watched "Singin' in the Rain," "The Sound of Music," Charles Chaplin's "The Gold Rush" and "The Circus." Oh, and don't let me forget the 1930s, Errol Flynn version of "The Adventures of Robin Hood." I did have to repeatedly identify which guy was which in that one, as they all had mustaches and British accents, bad guys and good alike.

These movies give rise to so much discussion and in some cases further investigation. Who knew, for instance, that it used to be a Halloween custom for trick-or-treaters to throw flour in their neighbors' faces when they answered the door? I didn't, until we saw that ritual enacted in "Meet Me in St. Louis" and felt compelled by the weirdness of it to find out more.

To help the kids understand "The Sound of Music," I had to talk a little about who Nazis were and what a swastika was and why Captain von Trapp was so upset when someone hung a Nazi flag on his house (though I kept my explanations simple and focused more on the Nazis taking over countries--I didn't feel ready to go into the Holocaust yet). We also learned more about the actual story of the von Trapps and found out some interesting contrasts with the movie: in real life, Captain von Trapp was somewhat tempted by the offer to command a submarine for the Germany Navy, but eventually decided he couldn't stomach supporting the Nazi cause, even if it meant getting to play with a really cool toy. We learned that in real life, if the von Trapps had tried to cross the mountains on foot, they would have ended up in the back yard of Hitler's country retreat.

I've also been fascinated to see how Bridger picks up on visual elements in the movies. In "The Circus," when Chaplin first meets the aerialist who captures his heart, her father has just pushed her through a circus tent covered with a pattern of stars. When Chaplin's character helps her up, she's still clutching a torn star. At the end of the movie, the aerialist has married a handsome high-wire walker and the circus has pulled up stakes and taken off for the next town. Chaplin is sitting on an old crate in the dust when he spots a torn paper star and picks it up. "That's his last trace of his love!" Bridger remarked. At first I didn't understand the connection he was making until he reminded me of the star in that early scene.

On the down side, some old movies do have sexist, racist, or homophobic stereotypes that need to be talked about, but even that's an opportunity. In "Meet Me in St. Louis," the Judy Garland character and her little sister sing a jokey song about "a maid of royal blood but dusky shade." I made sure to talk with the kids about how that kind of song wouldn't be included in a movie now, and why, and why people at the time thought a song like that was OK. There are occasionally moments that upset the kids--like the way a father slapped around his daughter in Chaplin's "The Circus. We talk about those moments, too, and get to share in a safe way how we feel about that kind of violence. But for the most part I've found old movies a safe haven from kids' entertainment that's either insultingly innocuous and dumbed-down on one hand or amped-up, sarcastic, and mean-spirited on the other.

For ideas about good old movies to watch with children, I've found Ty Burr's The Best Old Movies for Families: A Guide to Watching Together a great resource.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

It's Ba-ack!


"Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself (I am large, I contain multitudes.)"
-Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself"

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self-Reliance"

I am calling on some pretty heavy hitters to justify why I am resurrecting this blog after killing it so decisively, uh, only seventeen days ago. But Emerson and Whitman have always been beloved spiritual uncles to me, as they understandably are to so many people. Tonight, their famously bad-ass words gave me the permission I needed when I thought, you know, I think I DO want to keep posting on my blog after all! I still have work to do to keep my Internet use under control, so that'll be a bit of a challenge. I also still need to figure out a way to make sure my essay-writing stays my number one writing priority. But I think the challenges are worth it to me, and here's why.

What I realized tonight is that this blog is the easiest way I know for me to preserve moments from my life with my children that I really do want to remember. I don't seem motivated to record memories in a hand-written journal the way I used to when they were babies and toddlers--perhaps I've changed too much, grown impatient with the slow speed of handwriting and the difficulty of retrieving memories quickly from piles of notebooks. But I do seem willing to commit moments that stand out to me to a blog.

In the last few days, my kids have said things I really don't want to forget. All of these utterances, perhaps not coincidentally, are related to bodily functions--my kids are 3 and 6, after all, and they live with a fairly uninhibited pair of parents. If gross-out humor isn't really your thing, you may just want to stop right here. Otherwise, brace yourself and proceed on.

Story Number One:
A few days ago I was showing the kids a cool, layperson-friendly version of the periodic table that my husband had found online. I was talking about the noble gases when Cassidy piped up, "Noble gases? Is that what royal people toot?"

Her pun-loving physicist daddy was so proud.

Story Number Two:

The kids like me to tell them stories about when I was a kid. "Eight!" they say, or "Twelve!" or "Three!" and I come up with something I remember from whatever age they've asked for. I've told them so many memories at this point that I really have to scrape the bottom of the barrel sometimes to come up with something new. Tonight, I told them about a boy in my third-grade class who used to collect his boogers in little piles on a paper towel on his desk.

Cassidy responded thoughtfully, "When I pick my nose, I just wipe the snot on my clothes, and then a fairy takes it away. She's brown, and she's not very fancy."

And last but not least, Story Number Three:

At bedtime tonight, we were talking about what it means to "let go," because we say a bedtime prayer that ends "It is only in letting go that we find real peace." To try to explain what I personally mean by "let go," I told the kids about Byron Katie, creator of The Work and seemingly one of the most enlightened beings around right now. According to my understanding of Byron Katie's ideas, "letting go" means accepting and loving exactly what's happening, no matter what. It doesn't necessarily mean passivity; think of Gandhi, Thich Nhat Hanh, or Mother Teresa, working to make the world better while accepting their utter lack of control.

Bridger was especially riveted to hear the way Byron Katie experienced some truly terrifying situations: a possible cancer diagnosis, near-blindness, and an encounter with a gunman intent on taking her life. In each case, she faced what was happening with curiosity, fearless openness, and love for her life and the people in it--even the gunman. (At least that's how she tells it, and I happen to believe her.)

I told the kids about how Katie says, "I'm a lover of reality. When I argue with what is, I lose, but only 100% of the time."

"But what is 'reality'?" Bridger asked.

"'Reality' is what's actually happening, not just what we wish was happening," I told him.

He was quiet for a while, and then he said gleefully, "I'm reality!"

Yes, I agreed, you are definitely reality. But now, I said, it's time to get ready to sleep so you can stay healthy and well-rested.

"The floor is reality," I heard Bridger muttering beside me in the bed. "The universe is reality. The floor is reality. The bed is reality. The window is reality."

"Yep. Good night, sweetie," I said, patting him, wondering why I'd gotten a conversation this big going at bedtime in the first place, grateful at the same time that we'd had the conversation at all.

"A TOILET PLUNGER is reality!" he declared. And then, he was silent. He had said what needed to be said, and he was now ready to accept the reality that it really was bedtime.



"I believe in the flesh and the appetites,
Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me
is a miracle."
-Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself"