Star Wars – the secret language of boys

So, the other day my seven year-old comes home from school and starts talking about the great pit of carkoon.  A place all dread in the sixth (but really the third) Star Wars installment movie, “The Return of the Jedi.”   We have seen the first film (OK, fourth) and since Lego offers Star Wars kits, as well as the movie of “The Clone Wars,”  Star Wars is still very much in the stratosphere.  For those of you who do not know what this pit is, it is part of the Jabba the Hutt (?) mythology, and the long scene where Carrie Fisher is wearing basically a bikini and a loin-cloth.  She does look quite fabulous, and I marvel how she manages to keep that thing on, while being yanked about by Jabba.  Oh, yes, and Luke and his pals are sentenced to be thrown in the pit.  OK.  It’s actually one of the most entertaining parts of the film. 

My son and his friends spend hours drawing this fabled pit, along with of course Luke, the light saber, and someone named – I think this is spelled right –  Boba Fett.  He is a character – minor but I have yet to figure out who or why – but his prominence at least to this group of six to eight year old boys  is astounding.   Fett wears an armor and has kind of a jet-pack on his back, like Flash Gordon.

OK, so that might have been that until the other night when I was talking to my brother.  We are old enough (ahem) to have experienced the actual opening of the first movie trilogy.   I mentioned to him that we were watching “The Return of the Jedi.”    Then my son gets on the phone with his uncle, and all of the sudden they are discussing Boba Fett.   He is also my brother’s favorite character because, as “Uncle Bro”  says, Fett is not just good or evil but a little bit of both.  Interesting in a movie in which although there are some subtleties, the characters are either light or dark.   We won’t even go into “Darth (or, as he is known in my house, “Dark”) Vader right now.

So I’m watching a seven year-old boy discuss a character with a forty-something  man like it was the most natural of conversations.   And they were connecting on this obscure minor figure in a movie that came out over twenty-years ago.  Which I had never heard about until a month ago.   Star Wars is the secret language of boys.

How I spent my summer vacation….

Me feeding the ray

I got to feed cownose rays and swim in the ocean (well dip myself up to my hair that is).    I dissappointed my son who thought his mama was a water person but I really am not.  I went to two baseball games at Nats Town (which seems more like cracker town to me – why?) but it was great.   I smelled the salty air of Stonington CT, my other love town.  Besides Washington, DC that is.  City love, seaside love.   Torn between two lovers.   I got an editorial published in the paper.  Renovated a school garden.  Learned to appreciate high school students.  Sigh.

Is it Black or White? Does perception blur reality?

One day last month I left my keys in the car while I was parked in the underground lot of  Target.   Since it was a hot day, I had left the passenger side window unrolled about two and a half inches.  In the old days, when the locks were the mushroom shaped button things, it always looked so easy to pop that sucker out.  Nowadays, with the lock being a switch mechanism it seems harder to manuever, but I thought I would give it a try.  SO, using some tools (extendable skewers bought in the garden department) I started to try and get that damn lock to give so I could get in my own car.

I did think once what if someone sees me and assumes I am trying to break into some random car in the parking garage?  Then, I dismissed that idea, thinking that if some cop came up to me and asked me what I was doing, I would just show him my license and explain my dilemma.  That would be that.   The officer may even help me.. who knows.

Now it makes me think what if I had been a black male?  What if I had been Professor Gates?   Would the perception obscure the reality?  What happened exactly between Gates showing Officer Crowley his license indoors, being asked to step out of his house, and the “arrest” for disorderly conduct?  Crowley said that Gates said “Ya, I’ll speak with your mama outside,” and the Officer noted, “I’m still amazed that somebody of his level of intelligence could stoop to such a level, and berate me…”  WHAT?   What an arrogant ignorant comment to make on the part of Crowley.   If it had been me, I would’ve said much worse things and I am highly educated and intelligent.   Is this attitude so ingrained that it is not even visible to people? 

In my class of summer school students, of the black males in the class, almost all of them had been harrassed or taken aside by police or “jump-outs” (undercover officers).   Most times just going about their business.   One said that when he was patted down by an officer after being stopped in a store, he felt as if he had been violated.  I can’t even imagine what that would do to his dignity, his self-esteem, his perception of law enforcers.  Would half a group of white male students have had the same experience? 

I don’t have time to get into the Obama comment, and then the retraction and offer of a conjugal beer between the two and the President himself.  I do understand why Obama had to backtrack on his original comment of “stupidity” on the part of the officers involved.  The reaction to that comment escalated overnight.  All that is apparent to me is that we still have a lot of work to do in this country.  And you can tell your mama that for me.

Sorry seems to be the hardest word….

What is going on today?  Where have basic kindness and manners gone to?  Why do I even bother to teach my son (and the other children I interact with at school) to say please and thank you?  “I’m sorry,”  is so much harder because  people just don\’t want to admit they are wrong, or to admit a mistake.   Where I work now, one of my bosses apologizes to  me if he has said something he feels that needs correcting, or if he was too harsh.   Bless him.  It makes me feel better, even if I hadn\’t even noticed.  It shows he cares, he is sensitive to my feelings.  He also compliments me if I do a good job.  Sublime.

A recent dust-up in the parking lot, which resulted in an adjoining car’s occupant breaking my side mirror from opening the door suddenly did not result in an apology.   This woman denied that she had any part in this episode.  There is no need to pursue it, the damage was minimum, but she could have said, \”I\’m sorry.\”  Sometimes a situation just needs those three little words for it to be diffused.   Why is that so difficult?

Sometime you gotta go back to go forward

How Bruce Springsteen made me remember and helped me to move on.

Inaugurations and Ice Storms

The feeling I got while at the swearing- in, during the Inauguration, was one of unity, of hey we really are all in this together.  People were polite, talking to one another, sharing their joy.   Suffering through the cold for the chance to say hey I was there, this means something to me.   But there was an excitement, pride in the air along with the chill.  Like damn, we did something good here, we made change together. 

Same thing during the next week’s ice storm.  It was like we’re all slipping down the icy sidewalks and streets together, so let’s talk and commiserate and laugh.   Point out a better path (“Walk in the middle of the street,” I was advised by a stranger.)   “Mommy, this is the best day ever,”  my boy said.  He was using the icy path as his own personal skating rink, as a magical seven-year old is wont to do, falling down every other step.   Wo, up to that moment I had been focusing on everything but that.  It made me stop – look at the ice-covered branches, listen to the chrystallized silence,  hear the laughter, enjoy the experience.   A second before that all that was in my mind was late to work, school, cold etc. etc.   

In each occaision the moment made me stop and be aware.  It brought me together with others.   I was there, and present.  Happy.  Hopeful.  Open.  In awe.

Hooray.  Sometimes the will of man, sometimes the perspective of a child, sometimes an act of nature.

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