Lady of the Islands

29/05/11 07:29

Dude. Let's see if we can get off on the right foot this morning. What do you say about a boy who wears the same pair of pants to school day in and day out? I thought adolescents were supposed to be fashion conscious. He never seems to even give it a second thought. You might think that people might start to talk and that might motivate him to change his ways. I don't care about his ways so much. I'm more concerned about what this says about the way his mind works. Twisted? Tormented? Or, simply hip. Thankfully, he wears a nice assortment of shirts and sweaters so much so that one might not notice that he is always wearing the same pair of pants. But we know. We've offered to go with him to sort it all out and pick up something new. Something fresh. He is just not interested and has little to say about why he isn't interested. He doesn't say and we don't ask. Not anymore. It is important to keep in mind that through the 8th grade anyway he wore nothing but shorts to school. We're not talking Bermuda, camouflage, or knickers here. His attire was more akin to something one might wear to basketball practice than school. And he wasn't alone. Jeans, you ask? Forget about it. He's never worn a pair in his life. Just not into denim I guess. You have to admit, he is his own man. Left to his own decisions for better or worse. We love him as-is. Right off the shelf as it were.

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It's curious then that he is off to the lakes region this weekend to spend a day and night with a couple of girls from school. Lucky duck. To our knowledge, he has never had a date. He never speaks of relationships, people, events, not even when asked. He is about as secretive as a child can be without being rude or seeming non-responsive. It may have only come to light because the mother of the young girl wanted to speak to the parents of the boys involved. That would seem to be the right thing to do. Not at all unnatural. Maybe "date" is too strong a word. Maybe this is what teens do. Maybe they just congregate and hope for the best. If parents have to be involved then so be it. Hopefully, they won't hover. How do you know for sure if they are doing the right thing if you don't hover? We're less concerned about our son's welfare than we are about what this says about where he is on the child-adult continuum. It is telling, you must admit. But we must remember that this young woman is one who's name has never crossed his lips. For all we know, of the two young woman involved, it is the other young woman who is the object of his interest. Maybe there are no interests at all. Maybe we are reading too much into it. Parents do that sort of thing. Much to the distress of their children, I might add.

I'm delighted to see my darling back on her bike after a short but painful self imposed exile. I rode behind her much of the way yesterday watching with interest as she found her stride and never looked back. It is something my darling dearly loves to do. Take it away from her for any appreciable period of time and she laments endlessly. My worker bee of a wife is married to her routines and biking is one of the more important routines she has so it best not leave that aside for too long. I wonder if she thinks of me as her worker bee of a husband. If not working bees, then what? Surely I digress. We'll ride again today. A little longer perhaps than yesterday now that she is getting her sea-legs back beneath her. A little further down the boulevard. Far enough away so that the torments of her physicality are in the rear view mirror once and for all. For the moment anyway. That's all you can ask.