Other Firsts (Change: part 5)

We went to IKEA.

I mentioned that before back when I was talking about getting the espresso machine and all of that, and I see from looking back that I said I was going to do a post about the whole IKEA trip thing. Well, I never did that. At this point, I'm probably not going to, either; this will have to serve as that post.

I think the IKEA thing is interesting because of the sort of cultural significance of what IKEA has become, i.e., a relationship testing grounds. My wife and I talked about that a surprising amount on our first trip (yes, that means there has been at least one other trip). She was worried that we would get into some kind of fight or argument in relation to the item we were going to purchase (yes, the "red thing").

At any rate, the whole trip felt like some weird kind of rite of passage for us, like, even though we've been together nearly 20 years, we weren't a "real" couple because we hadn't been through the IKEA fire of purification.

Personally, I don't really get it. I don't get the whole fighting at and over IKEA. I understand why it happens, but I don't get it. See, the problem is that couples go to IKEA with no real plan about what they're doing or what they're getting, so they end up getting into arguments about that there in the store. And everything related to it. But my wife never does anything without a plan, so we've always already looked at all the options and come to decision about it before we ever buy anything so, when it comes to the purchase, we just go and buy the thing.

Which is not to say that we just have the argument at home, because that's not it, either. We're actually pretty good at just discussing things and knowing what's actually important to each of us. What's important is, well, an important thing, and it's important to know those things going in. For instance, we could have had a fight over the color, but that's not really important to me, but I think that's the kind of thing a lot of people would get into a disagreement over. Not because both parties felt passionately about the color but because there was a mild preference for something different for each person that ends up becoming a fight.

Anyway...

Learning how to discuss things and come to agreements is something that many people never learn how to do, and we had our years of learning those things, but those were a long time ago.
Mostly.
heh
But we made it through IKEA, and that's what's important, right?



We changed Christmas.

As I mentioned in my first "Change" post, people have a hard time with change, especially if it has to do with family traditions and more especially if it has to do with family traditions dealing with the holidays.

When I was a kid, my whole family, including my dad, hated going to my paternal grandparents' for Christmas. It was horrible. Everyone sat quietly in the living room with the poor lighting and watched TV that was barely audible. That would last for hours before there were presents, which we were never allowed to open or play with while we were there. There were also no toys at their house, which is why the kids just sat and watched TV with everyone else. Nothing to do in the house, and we weren't allowed outside, because we always went over there one evening during the week leading up to Christmas. Oh, and there was no food, either. My grandparents would always get one of those store bought deli plates; you know, the one with the meat and cheese on toothpicks. One. It never lasted more then 10 minutes into everyone arriving, and we (the kids) were always told not to get more than one meat and one cheese until everyone had had some. That meant there was never any left because the adults didn't follow that rule.

We all hated it, and, yet, we went every year.

Until we didn't.

That was my fault. I don't remember how old I was, but I think it was sometime during middle school when I stated, "I don't want to go." Of course, I didn't want to go anywhere when I was in middle school. But I didn't go. I guess that kind of broke the whole thing. Not right away of course, because my parents and brother still went but only for a couple or few more years. The fact that I started refusing to go over there and sit on the couch for four hours (or more) staring at the wall eventually allowed everyone else to stop going, too. Or something.

And sure, you could say I was (or am) just a bad person for refusing to go to my grandparents' house for Christmas, but really? Family obligation only goes so far and should be two ways.

But that's not what this is about. It's just an example.

When my wife and I prepared to spend our first Christmas together, we actually sat down and had a long talk about how to do it. I really had left all of my traditions back in the South, so it was all about looking at what was important from each of our childhoods and working out what we wanted to do. And that was great. But...

The food was not great. We've been doing the very basic ham, mashed potatoes, etc thing for nearly two decades, and the ham ends up sitting in the fridge for days after being eaten pretty much only by me. Not because I like it that much but because I don't want it to get tossed. But, you know, tradition. And my daughter especially gets ruffled whenever any tradition thing gets changed (just this week she was bemoaning the loss of a sandwich shop (the shop shut down at least five years ago) where we used to get sandwiches every year for Independence Day firework show).

However, in part because of all of the other changes during 2015, just after Thanksgiving, my wife said to me, "What would you think about doing something different for our Christmas dinner this year?" I, of course, was all for it. And, surprisingly, my daughter (and the boys) bought in, too. So for Christmas, we had a big "traditional"-ish Italian Christmas dinner. It was really great, and we decided to do some different ethnic theme every year from now on.

In fact, we have actually worked that into our food routine. January was our month for exploring Indian food, and we learned how to make several different dishes (and my wife made the most amazing naan!). March will be Moroccan cuisine. February, due to travelling, has been a carryover of Indian. It's a lot of fun exploring foods this way, and it never would have happened if we hadn't messed around with our Christmas tradition.

And there was no leftover ham this year!

Well, not until New Year's when we did Cuban food and needed ham for part of that, but oh well...

An Exploration in Fantasy -- Part Six: The Draw (an IWM post)

I suppose the real question is, "Why does all of this matter?" Of course, that's the real question for so many things, but let's just look at it in relation to fantasy for the moment. Why does it matter? Why should we care about fantasy or where it comes from?

And that could go in all kinds of directions and get all kinds of philosophical, but I want to look at it in relation to the fantasy model itself. You can find the list here.

So... Let's start with kids.

* * *

But let's start with kids over on Indie Writers Monthly. Yeah, I know you know the drill.

I'll see you there. I better see you there.

A Wrinkle in Time (a book review post)

So here we are back visiting another book from my childhood. Here's the background:

I first read A Wrinkle in Time when I was about 10,

fourth or fifth grade; I loved it. The idea of a tesseract, a wrinkle in space and time, was just... it was amazing! I think, really, the book began and ended there. Okay, not quite; I also loved when they wrinkled onto the 2-D planet. And I think my friends and I tried to bounce all our balls in unison at least once or twice to mimic the kids on Camazotz. My nostalgia for this book says it's great.

At the time I read it, I didn't know there were more books and, then, the next book I got a hold of was A Swiftly Tilting Planet, the third in the series. I did my first oral book report on that book but, now, I don't remember anything about it. The book, not the report. The report went... poorly. It was my first lesson in public speaking, and I never let nerves get the better of me again after that. At any rate, I never read A Wind in the Door and didn't even know there were two more books in the series until recently when we were getting them for my daughter. So, see, I thought, "Hey, I never read some of these and don't really remember much about the two I did read, but I loved Wrinkle when I was a kid, so I'll just read them all now!"

Which may have been a mistake...

A Wrinkle in Time did not live up to my memories of it. Not even close. The book does a lot of things that I just can't stand, now, as a reader, although I can understand the attraction of the book to kids, and I would still recommend it for kids not yet out of middle school. It does, after all, have some amazing concepts in it; they just don't make up for the places the book fails me as an adult reader.

My biggest issue with the book is the withholding of knowledge. Specifically from Meg. It's one thing to withhold from the reader, but I'm overtired of the whole thing where the characters in books (or movies) who have information withhold it from those who don't for no good reason. And there is no good reason in Wrinkle. Meg is constantly asking questions, and Charles Wallace, her mother, and the Ws just don't answer her. Frequently, it's passed off as "there's not time for that, right now," but, then, they spend tons of time just not doing anything in which those questions could have been answered. If you don't want to reveal the answers to your character, don't have your character asking the questions.

Beyond that, though, there are too many other unanswered questions. [There will be spoilers.] Questions like:
Why do the "witches" care if Mr. Murry gets rescued? The vague answer in the book is not sufficient.
If the "witches" do care, why did they wait so long? Ostensibly, I suppose this is because he was finally going to "break," but I don't really buy that. Why wait that long?
Why didn't IT just take care of the children? There's no good reason for allowing them to roam around.
Why is Charles Wallace hanging out with the giant brain when Meg goes back for him? No one else is hanging around with the giant brain, so why is Charles Wallace even still there?
Why are the "witches" stealing blankets and messing around with an abandoned house at all if they are just going to leave at the end of the story? None of that stuff made any sense at all.

I could go on.

Another thing I have really come to dislike: the giving of "gifts" that will help the heroes but not telling them how to use those gifts. How dumb is that?
"Here's a red button. Only push it if you really need to."
"What does it do?"
"I can't tell you that."
"How will I know when to use it?"
"I can't tell you that."
So Meg's usage of the spectacles that were given to her were less used as a "last resort" than as a "well, I can't think of anything else to try."
As a plot device, this ploy is rather lame.

The last major issue for me is the rather arbitrary behavior of some of the characters. Okay, mostly Meg. Specifically, the scene near the end when she's mad at her father then suddenly isn't. After spending years working with teens (and just knowing about people) that's how absolutely no one behaves, especially teens. But it's the arbitrary behavior of the "witches" that bothers me most, because, really, none of it makes any sense.

Now, I can see the attraction of all of that for 10-14 year old. I think frequently their worlds do look pretty arbitrary, so they don't question any of these behaviors; I certainly didn't when I read the book at that age, but, as an adult, an adult that knows that there generally are causes and reasons for things, I was left unsatisfied.

Basically, reading this book now, it feels to me like a skeleton of a book. Like it was the draft that L'Engle didn't go back to to flesh out. Or, maybe, it was the need to keep it at an appropriate length (as deemed by the publisher) to be desirable for the intended audience. All I know is that it needed more for me, now, as an adult then it needed for me, then, as a kid. Which is a significant point since the book is aimed, generally, at middle grade readers. It does leave me feeling somewhat ambivalent about the book overall, though. I will be continuing on in the series, though, so I'll let you know how those go as I get to them.

My Relationship with Death (part 1)

Children have such a loose concept of death. They know that it's a thing and learn that it's a thing that means the person in question will not be there anymore, but they don't know what it means. It's sort of the equivalent of a broken toy in many respects leaving the child waiting for a replacement. But there is no replacement from death.

I remember  my first funeral. I think I was three. Maybe two. I remember all the people at my grandparents' house, like snapshots of strangers in the sun on the porch stairs, but, mostly, I remember the body of my great-grandfather, who was hardly a person to me, but whom my mother loved, and how he looked waxy laying in the casket. Like a wax figure. 40 years later, that is still the image in my mind. A wax man in a coffin. Like it wasn't real, because, at three, it's just not.

Childhood is a progression of meaningless deaths, in fact; distant relations that have no meaning to us. We can't feel the death, because, frankly, that person means much less to us than a favorite toy or even the goldfish that sits in our room and that we're responsible for feeding (I never owned a goldfish). Sure, there are exceptions for some people, but, see, they're exceptions. Most of us go through childhood and funerals watching other people cry and wondering why. We just don't get it.

And that continues... until it doesn't.

Because, even after we've figured out what death is, for most of us, it's still meaningless. We don't mean it to be; after all, we get that someone has died, but it just doesn't touch us. It's someone else's tears, someone else's pain, and we might cry, but it's for that other person's pain, not our own.

Until it isn't.

This is why, though, teenagers get so wrapped up in death. Those that do. It's never been close enough to understand, not really, so the idea of suicide doesn't really seem real. Because death has never really seemed real. It's easy, then, to play the suicide card, because other kids get it enough to say "no, don't do that," but not enough to really take action. Because, really, who would do that, right?

It was a suicide that brought my first real discomfort with death. I think I was 17 and I didn't know the girl. But, see, she knew me. She knew me well enough to talk about me and the fact that she had a crush on me. I was nice to her, you see, but I didn't know her. She used to visit my youth group, and I made a big impression on her, because, the first time she ever came, the time she came when she didn't know anyone except the one person she came with, I went up to her and introduced myself and welcomed her into the group and brought her over to everyone else and made her feel like she belonged. But I didn't know her. That's just how I was. She made friends, and people knew her, but I never really did.

So when someone asked me why I hadn't gone to her funeral, I didn't know what she was talking about. First, the name of the girl didn't mean anything to me. I had no idea whom she was talking about as the girl hadn't been to youth group in months. Worse, though, I couldn't bring any picture of the dead girl to mind, and no one's attempts to remind me of whom she was did any good. I hadn't been to the funeral simply because I hadn't known she'd died. Because I didn't know who she was.

Of course, then everyone felt obligated to let me know what I'd meant to her. That she'd had a crush on me since I first introduced myself to her. That, really, she'd come to our youth group (because she actually went to a different church) as often as she did because of me. That she spoke of me as "the nicest person ever." That she talked about me. A lot. Asking how I was and all of that.

And I didn't even know her name or her face, and the guilt just poured on, because, maybe, if I'd paid better attention, I could have done something. Of course, in my head, I know it wasn't my fault and that I had nothing to do with it. In fact, one of the things I later learned is that she had been talking about suicide since well before she met me and that meeting me actually delayed it. But that doesn't change how it feels. The feel of it is "how could I have been so important to her life and not know who she was." I wonder if celebrities ever have those thoughts.

That was when I first really became aware of death in a real sense. In a meaningful sense. In the sense that death was a thing that could affect me in a meaningful way. And that moment, that confrontation of this girl's death, the girl I didn't know, has stayed with me for 25 years. It still makes me uncomfortable, because I still wonder how I could not have known any of this beforehand. Not that I had a reason to. No one told me. I suppose they all just thought I must already know.

Not long after, one of my closest friends would lose her father and another friend (in the sense that I had classes with him and had known him for years) would go off the road from driving while intoxicated and kill two children. Showing great mercy and forgiveness, the parents of the children did not press charges, but I can only imagine what it must have been like for him. In all honesty, he became a much more likable person afterwards.

Mostly, though, Death was just a distant thing all through high school. I had brushes with it, but I didn't come face to face with it. Not yet...

Note:
On a morbidly related note, there's a blogfest on Friday:

Pop in over here, read all about it, and get signed up! Seriously, go do it. Now.