"Hey Mike-Mike," he says to my friend with familiarity in his voice. This is the other day when I hand over my cell phone so he can talk. He is two, not quite 3, but soon to turn it in the fall. "Little boy," I say, "how'd you know to call Mike that!??" For a moment he forgets that Mike-Mike is on the cell, that he is even holding the cell himself. I can tell this. He just smiles that smile he's been giving me lately, the one where he's not quite sure what he did that intrigued me so to show such amusement toward him, the one that bears the mark of pride at having
caused it. It is a smile with his eyes and brows, a soft rhythmic dance between the two as big green-gray-brown eyes suddenly hit daydream mode and brows arch high. His eyes glisten brightly like tearful eyes minus the puffs. His tiny mouth housing tiny pink lips opens to form the perfect small "o." Somehow, all of this works to create that smile of his.
I don't know when the kid ever heard me call Mike, "Mike-Mike." Mike and I don't talk on the phone that often. He has never met mike or talked with him on the phone before until now. And he certainly hadn't been around previously to hear me affectionally calling my friend "Mike-Mike," as I happened to be all by my lonesome at the time. But the kid's amazing like that. Somewhere along the line, on another given day, he must've heard me using my term of affection for Mike and inadvertently stored it in that spongy brain of his. I hope he keeps amazing me like this. I like to feel tingly inside from the wonderment and witnessing the pride in his smile at having caused his Auntie Lee-Lee to feel it.
And it is because of these types of occurrences between my nephew and I that make me, right now, in this very moment want to rescue him from boredom. I know he's bored because children have active minds and his is especially active, certainly too active for what he is doing. He is sitting in his high chair having a late lunch that he has already finished eating. There are only crumbs and crumb coated fingers and television noise to keep him company (Every kid doesn't like to sit in front of the television all day. That's a myth. Elijah's mind is always on--even when he is watching it). I see all this as I'm sneaking back up the stairs to my room to hide from him. I see all this because he catches me in the act and looks at me with those intelligent eyes of his--even in moments of boredom his eyes are meaningful. "Hey Elijah" I say. "Hey" he says, then turns back around to continue doing nothing. He turns because he knows I don't want to be bothered. My heart half melts with shame. The story line is more so that I can't be bothered, shouldn't be bothered. When I see him like that I want to say, "Come on, let's go to the park" or "Hey, you want Auntie to take you to Jumpin' Joes?" I want to be the super hero auntie that I sometimes am, right then. But I am not that then. Then, and even now, I am sleepy and irritated and angry inside. I am not good for him. If my heart had melted fully, I could be.
So only moments ago, I was sitting on my bed drinking milk brought up with me from the kitchen and eating a chocolate swirl cake thingy retrieved from an early morning visit to the gas station. I was crying. Crying because my nephew needs discipline to his life so he won't end up like me (alotta promise without focus), a schedule to follow everyday where he's not just sitting around doing nothing. My sister loves him to death. I know this. But the poor kid's bum should be bruised and blistered the way she makes him just sit around all the time. But I know it's only because she's tired. It's her job to watch him while the rest of us work. And I was crying because I want to be bigger than who I am. Like this morning when I shot a bird at a truck driver who tried to run me off the road. I won't say what else that scenario entailed. Later, but not much later in the day, I was "greeted" (woken up) with a surprise visit from a friend who I have to say is one of the most complicated people I know. She has not been around to know that I've changed from the one I once was. She could not have imagined I would be unwilling to put up with her refusal to speak by mouth, forcing me to communicate by pen and paper so early in the morning, the way no one else will do for her and probably never will. I was crying because I'd just rededicated my life to God on Sunday, yet I allowed the residue of anger from the Saturday before it to arise on this morning and continue to this very moment, even. And I was crying because I could not decide which would be best, to write, to paint, to read or to run, to lie under a tree in the park under clouds or to go for a lone lunch at a cafe, to sleep in my car for my nap or try to finally get some rest in my room amongst the constant noise in the house causing me not to do so in the first place. Why couldn't I decide? So I cried some more, asking God, telling God, "I just want to sleep. I'm tired God. Why can't I just sleep?" Simultaneously, I could feel in my bowels the desire, the need to push past my lack of sleep and need of it, however, to spend time with my little nephew. Needless to say, I chose to write. Or rather it chose me. Like a puppet on strings I rose from my bed, grabbed my art-induced spray painted laptop with chocolate swirl cake fingers, and began to type.
I feel better I guess.
I just wish it didn't take all this.
