things I don’t understand
Hey Sam,
Here's a list of things I don't understand:
Dow Jones, who is he?
What makes waves?
Success, what does it look like?
Did Tom Hanks die from Corona virus?
Donald Trump
Parenting
It's that last one I want to talk to you about because I'm not sure I'm doing it right…
We watched the first three episodes of Star Wars last week to fill up some of our quarantine time. I'm talking about the original three movies... not the ones that come first in the series... the ones that came first in reality... not in the reality of the Star wars universe, but in our reality...
I’m talking about the films that came before Jar Jar Binks.
Anyway we watched all three and this is a list of things I never expected to say out loud:
Darth Vader gets his power from broccoli
Never use a force grip on strangers
Please don't lick the lighthouse.
You have a very active imagination. We've pretty much let it run wild over the years and, like ivy climbing outside a window, it has come to dominate your view of the world. You live mostly in your imagination and embody things with total conviction. Animals, people, robots, plants, whatever. Usually you change character day by day but after the Star Wars marathon Darth Vader set a new record for total immersion. Three days sleeping in the outfit we made. Three days practising your force grip, accompanying yourself with your own theme music. Three days of confusion about who was who's father. Three days of Yoda voices from yours truly which led to a sore throat and fresh fears of Corona virus. Three days wrestling with the dark side in search of your humanity. Throughout it all you were like a three foot high Daniel Day Lewis, totally committed to your role.
Your Mum and I believe in imagination as a force for good (search your feelings, you know it to be true), and we encourage you to be as individual and eccentric as you want, but my question is, in the long run, has it worked? Did our parenting style pay off?
Now I just have to point out that I'm basing this question on the theory that you are reading this, which means it is some time in the future and you are older. Inherent in that hypothesis is the following:
1) You are able to read.
2) You have at least a passing interest in what I have to say.
3) The internet still exists.
While you're here as your older self, I have a few questions for you:
1) How did you turn out? Tough one I know, but I'm hoping for some rigorous self evaluation as a result of our parenting.
2) Am I dead? Sorry, it's just that I'm not the youngest parent and I was just wondering how long I last...
3) How's the world look?
I wish I could hear your voice from the future but I'm also glad I can't, it's probably better left where it belongs, stretched out in time away from me. You are our only child Sam and there are a bunch of reasons for that but I'm not going to list them here, even though I like lists. Instead let's focus on the world that I can see, the one in the middle of a global pandemic, a world stopped in its tracks.
I don't know what it's going to be like in future, the future you're in, but it seems a lot more complicated already than the one I grew up with. I know old people always say that but I have to admit I don't know the best way to prepare you for what's coming, for what exists outside your window as you read this.
And that’s because, unlike you, my imagination has limits.
In these past few weeks of Covid19 the world has gone quiet. Sometimes in the silence, when I take a breath and hear the sound of a wave crashing on the beach in front of our apartment, when I sit back on the couch and watch you rushing towards me, when I watch you crashing into me, a tiny Darth, all in black, eyeholes cut through pillow slips, eyes wide and bright, force grip extended, like a wave crashing into my chest, pinning me with the force of this moment, the weight of you holding me fast to this place and this time when the world stopped.
Then I understand not just one thing,
but everything.
And all of my questions dissolve unanswered.
Love, Ragnar.
Age more than a count of heartbeats is. Age is how many mistakes you have made.
Yoda
