We flew to Omaha for New Year’s Eve, and took a taxi to the airport. It was Ian’s first cab ride; mine, too.
It’s not that I don’t like talking to people. Well. Not only that. I never know what to say. Weather? We all have windows. Sports? I’m attending an organ concert during the Super Bowl. Politics? No one likes those ‘fat cats in Washington’.
The one thing that gets me through haircuts is that I have to take off my glasses and can’t make eye-contact. I am socially-stunted, as my undershirts will attest. Ian doesn’t share my affliction. He won’t allow insignificant details such as eye-contact, personal space, tact, handcuffs, or Daddy’s flop sweat get in the way of a good conversation.
Our house is five minutes from the airport. Ian made our driver feel every one of them. Not long into the second, as we merged into the interstate, he made an observation.
Her name was Julie. Slightly shorter but slightly older, hair in a pig-tail and a missing front-tooth. She didn’t need water wings. Ian was enthralled.
Ian wouldn’t play with me when Julie was in the pool. It was half-hearted and he was distracted, looking over my shoulder to follow Julie’s trail of splashes to the deep end. Eventually he told me he didn’t want to play, apologetically, as if it were out of his hands, because it was.
We stayed later that night, because of Julie. Long past his bedtime. She swam, he followed, both of them teetering between the kiddie pool and the big pool, which seemed appropriate.
He was reluctant to come when I called, and took heavy steps toward the towel. He paused, dripping, and I reminded him to say goodbye. He knelt by the pool and I didn’t worry about falling; in some way, he already had. He crossed his arms over his knees and I saw his head bob, the way it does when Ian explains. She replied and he stood, smiling but frowning—smlowning— footslogging his way back.
I dried and he talked. Will we see her tomorrow? Maybe. I had fun. I saw that. Maybe she could meet us here? She probably has her own plans. Will we see her tomorrow? Maybe. He pulled away.
‘I’ll be right back. I want to tell her something.’
‘What?’ Even though I knew and hated to ask, because this was his.
He looked down and grew quiet and shy. ‘It’s a surprise.’
Only to him. ‘Okay, kiddo. But don’t make any promises to see her, because we don’t know what her family is doing.’
‘Oh.’ I’m sorry. ‘Okay.’
And he trotted back to the pool, where Julie was climbing the ladder. They talked again, Ian’s arms a third person in the conversation. She gave him a hug. And tousled his hair.
And my son returned, floating, toes dancing across the cold pools of water left on the concrete. Dazed and embarrassed, smiling but not sure why because this was bigger than him. His eyes turned to me, unfocused.
‘Wh…why’d she do that?’
I grinned, knowing the courage it took to ask and the power behind it. ‘Because she likes you.’
St. Louis reached seventy-three degrees last week. With temperatures like that, you spend as much time outside as possible, no matter how dark or looming the horizon. After work on Monday, we loaded Ian’s bicycle into the car and headed to Forest Park, there to bask in its fountainy goodness.
One problem with our neighborhood is its lack of sidewalks. The streets can be busy, too, so there’s no safe place for Ian to (learn to) ride his bike. It’s either down our driveway—into oncoming traffic—or down the street…into oncoming traffic.
Ian isn’t as confident with his bicycle as he could be.
It’s not that he doesn’t understand the concepts of moving his feet and watching where he’s going: he just can’t do them at the same time. If he looks forward, he back-pedals and slams to a halt. If he watches the pedals, he slams into a tree.
Three feet later and I was ready to put the bike back into the car. But we assured and cajoled and placed our hands on Ian’s back as he gained his confidence. From ‘Let’s go home’ to ‘See how fast’ in fifteen minutes.
Confidence, though, can be dangerous when combined with bridges, and Forest Park has several. Our favorite is the ‘wiggly bridge’, suspended over a tributary of the Grand Basin and perfectly balanced for bouncing above the water. It has an imposing incline for a four-year-old learning to ride a bicycle, and either end is flanked by concrete columns imposing for the father of a four-year-old learning to a bicycle.
As we pushed and pedaled our way across the bridge, I suddenly put decline and concrete together, and placed my hand on Ian’s handlebars. He stopped pedaling and let his hands dangle from the handles, and I guided him safely to the end.
Which isn’t what I’d intended. The safe part was great, but we cross that bridge every time we come to the park. Life is full of bridges, and at some point I’d like Ian to learn to use inertia and gravity to his advantage. At some point I’d like to remove his training wheels.
So on the return trip I surreptitiously gripped the back of Ian’s seat, slowing his speed but giving him free reign with direction. He didn’t notice, didn’t panic, kept pedaling, and steered his way between the columns.
By now it seems cliche to say that fatherhood has helped me understand God better than any devotional or TBN special. I’ve been saying that since Ian was born; literally, since that very day. Yet every so often I catch a glimpse, and I am sympathetic and thankful, and amazed that God guides us with his hand.
Countless bicycles across countless spans, loving and worrying and keeping us safe, despite our confidence and surety that no one is behind us.
[An excerpt from Perfume, by Patrick Suskind, whose character's opinions do not necessarily reflect those of mine. Except when Ian's missed his nap.]
‘…but now he seems much younger to me; he looks as if he were three or four; looks just like one of those unapproachable, incomprehensible, willful littler prehuman creatures, who in their ostensible innocence think only of themselves, who want to subordinate the whole world to their despotic will, and would do it, too, if one let them pursue their megalomaniacal ways and did not apply the strictest pedagogical principles to guide them to a disciplined, self-controlled, fully human existence.’
I take Ian to school on Wednesdays, which means I work late to make up the difference. It took him a while to get there, but I think Ian misses me, too:
‘I’m OK, but I’m sorted. That means when you break the rules, you get really tired.
And please do the stuff that you don’t know, and when you’re done with work, I still love you. When you’re at work, I know you want to be with me and you’re sad.’
Not all who wander are four years old. Just most of them.
