My son turned twenty yesterday.
For my birthday in 2005, when my son was almost ten, my wife asked me what I wanted and I asked for a DVD of Amadeus. The only Mozart I really listen to is kv 625, his Requiem. I was in a period of listening to it a bunch. I go through little phases.
That night, while I watched Amadeus for the first time in maybe fifteen years, my son watched it with me. And he had questions and stuff. We paused and talked about little details. We watched the special features. We watched the hell out of that movie.
And who knows why a ten-year-old likes anything, but Bryan started listening to my CD of the Requiem. And we'd talk about it, what parts we enjoyed and what parts we weren't fond of. I pointed out the parts that had been used in other parts of popular culture and we talked about how people used to not be able to even hear this music when they wanted to....that they had to wait for a performance and then just try to enjoy it while it lasted and maybe never hear it again in their lifetime.
So anyway, I was heading off to the grocery store one afternoon and my son asked if he could come with me. And sure. So he ran up to his room and grabbed the portable CD player that we used in the car, plopped into the passenger seat and started talking about something he noticed in one of the requiem's movements. And I pulled away from the house, just amazed at his curiosity...not just about Mozart, but about the world.
For my birthday in 2005, when my son was almost ten, my wife asked me what I wanted and I asked for a DVD of Amadeus. The only Mozart I really listen to is kv 625, his Requiem. I was in a period of listening to it a bunch. I go through little phases.
That night, while I watched Amadeus for the first time in maybe fifteen years, my son watched it with me. And he had questions and stuff. We paused and talked about little details. We watched the special features. We watched the hell out of that movie.
And who knows why a ten-year-old likes anything, but Bryan started listening to my CD of the Requiem. And we'd talk about it, what parts we enjoyed and what parts we weren't fond of. I pointed out the parts that had been used in other parts of popular culture and we talked about how people used to not be able to even hear this music when they wanted to....that they had to wait for a performance and then just try to enjoy it while it lasted and maybe never hear it again in their lifetime.
So anyway, I was heading off to the grocery store one afternoon and my son asked if he could come with me. And sure. So he ran up to his room and grabbed the portable CD player that we used in the car, plopped into the passenger seat and started talking about something he noticed in one of the requiem's movements. And I pulled away from the house, just amazed at his curiosity...not just about Mozart, but about the world.
He was always interested in other cultures, other people, traditions that were different from ours. One Christmas Eve, he asked me to pick up clay on my way home from work so he could make a dreidel. And I did, because...why not. And driving through town the September he turned five he asked why all the German flags were hanging along the street and I told him because of Oktoberfest and let a good five minutes slip by before asking him why, at the age of five, he knew those were German flags, the long answer to which was a description of other flags that share the pattern of the German flag but not the colors and then a summary of flags that shared Germany's colors but not the configuration and the short answer to which (the one I was hoping for in the first place) was Leap Pad.
So as I'm turning right at the end of our block, lost in pride and admiration, he screams. And I slam on the brakes. And he turns to me with panic in his face and yells, "I'm not wearing pants!"
And in this thing, as in so many others, my young son, the inquisitor, the multiculturalist, the collector of disparate opinions and unconnected facts, was right. No pants.
He WAS in boxers, which can look a lot like pants if you're a guy focusing on a short shopping list, but not at all like pants if you're walking around in a grocery store. We're lucky one of us noticed before it was too late.
I really didn't develop any real curiosity until it was too late to aid my primary development. By then, putting on pants had become a habitual thing. So, when I tell this story, it's with an enormous sense of pride. It's a rare thing to be so distracted by the wonder of it all that you can only be snapped out of your trance by, for an example, a car A/C vent shooting cold air through the barn door of your Fruit of the Looms.
So as I'm turning right at the end of our block, lost in pride and admiration, he screams. And I slam on the brakes. And he turns to me with panic in his face and yells, "I'm not wearing pants!"
And in this thing, as in so many others, my young son, the inquisitor, the multiculturalist, the collector of disparate opinions and unconnected facts, was right. No pants.
He WAS in boxers, which can look a lot like pants if you're a guy focusing on a short shopping list, but not at all like pants if you're walking around in a grocery store. We're lucky one of us noticed before it was too late.
I really didn't develop any real curiosity until it was too late to aid my primary development. By then, putting on pants had become a habitual thing. So, when I tell this story, it's with an enormous sense of pride. It's a rare thing to be so distracted by the wonder of it all that you can only be snapped out of your trance by, for an example, a car A/C vent shooting cold air through the barn door of your Fruit of the Looms.
So, happy twentieth, Bryan. Thank you for this moment and all of the others you've given me, and be kind years from now when I too start leaving the house without pants, laughing myself simple while I think about you and listening to Lacrimosa Dies Illa. You might be the only one who will be able to explain it to the cops.
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