OLD FAVORITE: BONDING WITH BOYS 2007

BONDING WITH BOYS
(Bodies in Action)
By Kris Richards
(February 28, 2007--when Evan was 8 and Jo Jo was 4)
If I had to choose a part of speech that describes boys, it would be the verb. Action verb. Not the helping verb like my friend Terri’s daughter who had cleaned my boys’ bedroom by the time I returned home the other night, nor the being verb which just sits there and is. But action. Raw, no-holds-barred action.

When you teach children creative writing, you encourage them to use strong verbs. You entice them to abolish the over-used ones like “said, went, or did.’ Frankly, I don’t think our boys know how to just “say,” or “go” or “do.” They yell and exclaim, or run and jump, or perform and conquer. Sometimes, in a rare moment when they are sitting still, they postulate. Of course they don’t know what that means, but they go places in their minds. Sometimes light years away. Take a couple mornings ago at breakfast. Our recently-turned four year-old throws out between Shredded Spoonful bites the following: “Mom, why are we here on this planet?” I stop spreading peanut butter and look at him. “I mean, why are we on Planet Earth and not on another one like Pluto or something? Mercury would be too hot, but maybe that other one would work. What is it… Venus?” I blink at my son, noticing that his feet are far from touching the ground . So are his thoughts. When I was 50 months old, I don’t think I even knew what a planet was, let alone the relative distance and temperatures of planets.

I’ve come to realize that life is too boring for boys to just be. So that’s why there’s usually a toy or invention within arm’s reach at the table to occasionally pick-up and play with. Only, it’s not playing with: it’s adjusting, morphing, beheading, or destroying. But it’s not destroying either. The pile of blocks will be knocked over so that a newer and better space station can be built. It’s always something newer and bigger and better. They’re problem-solving and postulating and asking questions that transcend our little world and normal things like Shredded Spoonfuls and peanut butter sandwiches.

At first I thought it was just my husband. When we were dating, I would be astonished at how fully he’d have to experience things. I concluded that he wouldn’t really be doing something unless he got hurt trying. A simple church-league baseball game was an excuse to slide into home plate, gashing his shin and adding pebbles to his knee. When we tried roller blading? The first hill we came to, he went straight down the center. Though we had cute, new matching helmets, knee and wrist pads, his looked drastically different than mine after the first hour. I had found an alternative path around the hill. (See my last article on boys and testosterone and the correlation of risk.) After we married, I began to expect that a little stint shooting photos would not be just “taking pictures.” He would always arrive home with mud on his back or down his side because he had to get just the right angle lying on a tree out over the river, or down in the sand. As I write this, my hubby has just returned from another photographic exploit on the coast. As he hands me his camera to peek at, I feel his freezing hands and notice the joy on his face. “Alright, how wet did your feet get?” I ask suspiciously. “Not very,” he replies, smiling.

But you know what I did on our honeymoon? Besides the usual romantic stuff, I was his coolie. Yep, coolie. This was before digital cameras, and so I would carry the camera bag and tripod up over dunes on the Southern Coast, or between burls in the Redwood Forest. You see, I knew he had a passion for photography. I wanted to bond not just over romance and gourmet meals and candlelight and good coffee and art galleries and my favorite movies, but also his stuff: his action. So I joined him in it. That, after all, is bonding for boys.

You see, I knew this already. For a year before we married and a few more afterward, we hung out with boys at an inner-city drop-in center. Oh, there were some girls at this place on NE MLK Boulevard and Dekum, but the girls didn’t really want to hang out with us. They were more private. Not the boys. To bond with them was easy. Randy played basketball and got his body slammed into the wall a few times (once through the wall, but that made it only more enjoyable). And me? I played Horse and ping pong. I was good at it, and so the boys respected me. I could usually beat Leondrae and Josh, but rarely could I conquer the more mature LaMont. It was fun. Some boys who came in were trouble makers who had brothers in jail from Measure 13. But they were good in that place because they knew that we were on their side and were motivated by love. We had proved it over time by our actions--and the action games we had played with them. These boys eventually helped us move into our first house, and even came to a batting cage with us in Tigard.

Later, I quit teaching and quit hanging out with youth in the inner-city in order to “slow down and have kids.” Boys, to be exact. You know, the action-verb boys. Instead of getting into bed, they swing from the bottom of the bunk and then drop onto the bed, squealing with delight. Coming down from either bed involves alternative routes from the ladder, and often a fireman-style slide down the bar on the bottom corner. When I’d help Jo Jo out of the van at two, he’d stop and yell, “TO INFINITY AND BEYOND!” before leaping into my arms. Now he just repels out of the van, his right hand clutching the seatbelt behind the driver seat, of course always clad in his army fatigue jacket.

Three mornings ago I was alerted that one of the boys was up when I heard a soft tapping on the bathroom door. I looked down to see four small fingers slowly sliding underneath the crack into the bathroom. I chuckled and opened the door. My four year-old was lying on his side, of course in army fatigue pajamas. “Shut the door,” he said calmly. I opened it 30 seconds later to find him in the same exact position, but now with a sword in his hand. Of course, he couldn’t just lie there and wake up, he had to lie there and fight evil forces!

The other night my boys were looking for something to do. They asked if I’d play a game of air hockey with them. Of course I would. I began to play against Evan, who is quite good. I was playing slower that night because Jo Jo was sitting in my lap. In my mind I contrasted this scene with my playing fast and competitively with those teenage boys at the drop-in center. I was a different person then! I knew I’d bond with those boys if I played hard and well. Now I was growing closer to my own boys by just playing. I was showing up and hitting the puck. When I play with Jo Jo, of course my reaction time is purposefully slower. But I’m in the game. I’m letting some get by… anything to keep that ear-to-ear grin going across the air hockey table.

At times I wonder about those boys from the drop-in center, and what twists their lives have taken. This last Halloween, my two little Super Heroes and I were at our church’s Harvest Party. While my caped crusaders were running around with some other similarly-clad boys (see my article “Keeping Their Capes On”), I went to prepare their hot dogs. A young man came in with his wife or girlfriend, possibly her mother, and a small child in his arms. He plopped himself down across from me, apparently needing a breather. I greeted him and he, me. Then he peered closely at me and asked, “Have I met you before?” I wasn’t sure. I looked at this handsome man in his mid-twenties, his baby boy snug against his side.
“I’m not sure… What is your name?”

“Rashaad.”

“RASHAAD!? I remember you! From the drop-in center on Dekum!” Bingo. That was it. He remembered me and my husband from those Saturday nights. Rashaad was a very quiet boy who, with his twin brother, would get dropped off each week by their grandmother. They’d play serious basketball and showed real talent. We never got to know Rashaad and his brother, but I remembered the big grin and the space between his front teeth. Yep, same nice boy. Similar Adidas gear. Only now, he had a good full-time job, a girl friend he was planning to marry, and a son in his arms. He was still a man of action, but he, too, was slowing down his game.