A Minute
"Well, ok, I'll miss you a minute. Because that's how long you'll be at Montreal," he said in a half-pouting way, his 9-year-old arms around my neck as I was leaning over to hug him. He made Montreal sound small and insignificant, like a building or a store or anything with visible limits which deserves an "at" in front of it.
Around us was the bus station, full of announcements and people, whom I wished well but didn't care much about. This pouting voice, and this head of untamed hair was what I cared about; the hair he often curled about his right forefinger distractedly, when he wasn't sure of something or when he was listening. Standing there, with a ridiculously small amount of time left before he'd be out of sight, I was wondering what I can possibly take, hang on to, keep from the brief time I'd known him, so that he'd be with me even when he wasn't, and even when he didn't think of me any more.
Because that's what it really comes down to: how do you handle the disappearance, your own, from the life of another... even (especially?) when that someone is a kid, and even when you have seen the kid only three times.
The first time we met, I had a momentary doubt about how it was going to go. It was just after his classes at school finished, and he was told there was a visitor. He approached me slowly, with a serious face, and a somewhat bent head, stealing side glances at me. The few minutes which the car ride took were touch and go, but then as soon as we got to the house, he showed me the winter-entering protocol ("first you take off your boots here, and you leave them there; then you take your slippers from here..."), and without a warning, we dove right into games (some spinning toys I had never seen before, or the hand-games -- "wa wa west" -- which I head never heard of before and don't even know if I spelled it right , or simply dancing to the latest Justin Bieber). He was testing me probably without knowing that he was testing me, and apparently, I could speak some of his language.
The second time I visited, he didn't know I'd be there, I think. I was sitting in the passenger seat, when he entered the back of the car after the drama class, not expecting to see anyone. Then when he did, and when he recognized me, the initially startled face was immediately swept off by widened eyes and a chuckle of sudden joy, a small satisfied "Oh!" (with "it's you!" implied) welcoming me without any other words. And that was it. He had me, effortlessly, and I didn't need anything more or better.
The third time was the last. The day before the bus-station goodbye, we got up very early -- the dawn was just breaking through the night skies -- we had the bagel and honey breakfast, we filmed a short clip where he was suddenly very serious in front of the camera, twisting a strand of his hair around his finger, and then we went for the race. We were registered for the 5km race; it was a pretty big event, with three different runs (5 km, 10km, and 10 miles), and all the eager runners were already there, warming up, or putting on additional layers in the chilly April sun. I was probably the only one who hadn't run at all in the previous 20 years, and he was one of the youngest runners. While the crowd sprawling around the start-line was following the young instructor's tips on pre-race stretching, we stood in their midst, a little lost: he in his last year's track suit which was just a little too short for him now, and me in a jacket too warm for this occasion because I had no proper running clothes. And then the start signal boomed somewhere above, and off we went, pushed on by the crowd, the trees and the year's first timid grasses rising and falling by the roadside in the rhythm of our running steps, and for some reason, I don't know how -- did the boy take my hand, or did I give him mine, or perhaps both? -- for a few moments we ran holding hands, two near strangers with a short past and a blank future, in a crowd. A blink of an eye could have fitted into that pocket of time, or a lifespan. I stole a few side glances at his profile, concentrated from the effort, took in each line and sound, gave a big swing up and down to our hands, and then let go.
A few hundred meters before the finish line, he asked me if he should start sprinting. I said I'd let him know when to start, and when I did, he gave it his all, running ahead of me, his naked ankles peeping from underneath the track suit he had outgrown.
The ending is anticlimactic, as most actual endings are -- on the surface.
The following day at the bus station, we had sore muscles, and an experience of running 5 km in our pockets. Whether, on top of it, this was the last goodbye, was irrelevant. One shouldn't "cling," as a wise book advises; but I knew I'd miss him, and I knew I'd miss him all the other minutes there are. If I could tell him one thing, though, it would be "run fast; run well."
Around us was the bus station, full of announcements and people, whom I wished well but didn't care much about. This pouting voice, and this head of untamed hair was what I cared about; the hair he often curled about his right forefinger distractedly, when he wasn't sure of something or when he was listening. Standing there, with a ridiculously small amount of time left before he'd be out of sight, I was wondering what I can possibly take, hang on to, keep from the brief time I'd known him, so that he'd be with me even when he wasn't, and even when he didn't think of me any more.
Because that's what it really comes down to: how do you handle the disappearance, your own, from the life of another... even (especially?) when that someone is a kid, and even when you have seen the kid only three times.
The first time we met, I had a momentary doubt about how it was going to go. It was just after his classes at school finished, and he was told there was a visitor. He approached me slowly, with a serious face, and a somewhat bent head, stealing side glances at me. The few minutes which the car ride took were touch and go, but then as soon as we got to the house, he showed me the winter-entering protocol ("first you take off your boots here, and you leave them there; then you take your slippers from here..."), and without a warning, we dove right into games (some spinning toys I had never seen before, or the hand-games -- "wa wa west" -- which I head never heard of before and don't even know if I spelled it right , or simply dancing to the latest Justin Bieber). He was testing me probably without knowing that he was testing me, and apparently, I could speak some of his language.
The second time I visited, he didn't know I'd be there, I think. I was sitting in the passenger seat, when he entered the back of the car after the drama class, not expecting to see anyone. Then when he did, and when he recognized me, the initially startled face was immediately swept off by widened eyes and a chuckle of sudden joy, a small satisfied "Oh!" (with "it's you!" implied) welcoming me without any other words. And that was it. He had me, effortlessly, and I didn't need anything more or better.
The third time was the last. The day before the bus-station goodbye, we got up very early -- the dawn was just breaking through the night skies -- we had the bagel and honey breakfast, we filmed a short clip where he was suddenly very serious in front of the camera, twisting a strand of his hair around his finger, and then we went for the race. We were registered for the 5km race; it was a pretty big event, with three different runs (5 km, 10km, and 10 miles), and all the eager runners were already there, warming up, or putting on additional layers in the chilly April sun. I was probably the only one who hadn't run at all in the previous 20 years, and he was one of the youngest runners. While the crowd sprawling around the start-line was following the young instructor's tips on pre-race stretching, we stood in their midst, a little lost: he in his last year's track suit which was just a little too short for him now, and me in a jacket too warm for this occasion because I had no proper running clothes. And then the start signal boomed somewhere above, and off we went, pushed on by the crowd, the trees and the year's first timid grasses rising and falling by the roadside in the rhythm of our running steps, and for some reason, I don't know how -- did the boy take my hand, or did I give him mine, or perhaps both? -- for a few moments we ran holding hands, two near strangers with a short past and a blank future, in a crowd. A blink of an eye could have fitted into that pocket of time, or a lifespan. I stole a few side glances at his profile, concentrated from the effort, took in each line and sound, gave a big swing up and down to our hands, and then let go.
A few hundred meters before the finish line, he asked me if he should start sprinting. I said I'd let him know when to start, and when I did, he gave it his all, running ahead of me, his naked ankles peeping from underneath the track suit he had outgrown.
The ending is anticlimactic, as most actual endings are -- on the surface.
The following day at the bus station, we had sore muscles, and an experience of running 5 km in our pockets. Whether, on top of it, this was the last goodbye, was irrelevant. One shouldn't "cling," as a wise book advises; but I knew I'd miss him, and I knew I'd miss him all the other minutes there are. If I could tell him one thing, though, it would be "run fast; run well."
posted by Tijana | 7:53 PM
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