The Other

I was a bad worker-drone today. Took the morning off at the last minute to help chaperone The Boy’s class field trip to the summit of Mt. Scary Vertical Dirt Road, where there was some serious bird-watching scheduled to occur.

The trip had been on the books for a while, but since we don’t own a 4-wheel drive vehicle—or a rocket ship—I didn’t think I met the volunteer criteria for the assistance required on this particular trip. Then last night, I’m tucking The Boy in and we’re talking about the upcoming bird-watching trip, and he hits me with, “I wish you could come, too, Daddy.”

And it occurred to me, by moving some things around, I actually could go with him. And the Kindergarten teacher might appreciate another adult chaperone, even one without Thunderbird One at his disposal.

My favorite definition of happiness, ironically from brooding anti-Communist author/philosopher Ayn Rand, popped into my head. “Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one’s values.”

Seriously, top that if you can.

And The Boy is what I value… why the hell wasn’t I going bird-watching with him and his class?

So I ran into my office, after 8 on Sunday night and emailed his teacher. Got up in the morning, disappointed to see I hadn’t heard from her but resigned to staying home and working. Utter chaos followed, trying to eat and get The Boy out the door to school in time. When I finally made it back to my computer, it was 7:30, and I beheld the email from his teacher that had come in at 6:35, that said I was welcome to come along. I flew out of here like a hastily-sunblocked hurricane and made it down to the school with minutes to spare.

One insanely dangerous ride up to the mountaintop later, the adventure began.

The adventure for The Boy involved petting recently-caught birds, hiking, listening to sincere people talk about birds, more hiking, an up close look at some mean-looking clawed birds, and finally getting to launch a bird off his hand back into the wild.

My adventure was getting to watch The Boy interact with his peers.

And it was illuminating. Without going into dreary detail (I save that for the parts of the story that are about me), I came to the conclusion that my son, like both his parents, is an Other. For better and worse.

You know what I mean. The “Other.” The odd man out. The square peg, looking for a round hole…

His teachers love him because he’s polite and uncannily focused. He plays with the other kids willingly and has formed a couple of close bonds with peers over the years (always abruptly severed by a change in circumstance).

But he’s very much, as Pat O’Brien used to describe his friend Jimmy Cagney, a far-away fella.

The other little boys, there was a commonality that ran through them. I don’t mean they were common, but there was a common thread that bound all of their behavior: they acted like the wild, unmanageable little beasts that boys are supposed to be at that age. They were cute as hell. Part of me wished my kid was more like that: a little more rambunctious, a little more of a risk-taker… then the parent thing kicked in and I remembered how grateful we are that he’s not a crazy, risk-taking, perfectly normal little six-year-old boy.

We like that he’s different, and not just because we sleep better at night knowing he isn’t falling asleep thinking up new ways to wreak mayhem in the morning.

He’s also gentler and more contemplative than his peers. Tonight he was on my lap and we were talking about stuff he’ll be able to do when he’s a grown-up, and he asked me, “Daddy, will you be alive when I’m a grown-up?” Taken aback, I told him that I sure expected to be. I told him that I wanted to get to know the man he’d grow up to be, to meet the woman he’d marry, to hold my Grandchilden in my arms.

And damned if I didn’t mean all of it.

Besides being twice as tall and half as coordinated as the average member of his peer-group, The Boy has classic Only-Child Syndrome; he gets along better with our friends than kids his own age. Adults find him precocious and charming, but his contemporaries sometimes don’t know quite what to make of him.

I’m pretty sure he’s the only Kindergartener, boy or girl, whose parents had to talk to him shortly after school started about the inappropriateness of blowing kisses to his teacher (whom he loves) when he leaves for home in the afternoon.

Fortunately he transferred over to his new school with a preschool pal, a little boy his same age, half his size and more agile than our Tall Drink of Water by leaps and bounds. Literally. His friend gets up on the monkey bars and you’d swear they named them after him. Having a friendly face in his new classroom eased the transition considerably, and the fact that his friend is a rough-and-tumble little bugger is a delightful bonus.

Because this world is designed to eat up and leave behind highly-sensitive little men like The Boy. By his age, the world had twisted me up into something even more interesting than our son—and infinitely more dangerous—and I used to dread The Boy going down the same dark path.

I don’t anymore. Especially not after today.

He’s definitely an odd duck, but he has the odd-duck qualities that eventually produce scientists, philosophers and statesmen, not serial killers and members of the lower house of Congress.

He’s not like everybody else and he genuinely doesn’t give a damn.

Maybe he isn’t so different from me, after all.