She'd Be Insisting Upon

Sitting in a comfy chair, up early getting work done and suddenly it’s all rather different.  I’m at sea.  Of course, I’m at sea.  There are enormous waves that I’m sailing upon, crashing through, steadily.  There is no spray and I rest on that thought for a moment.  Shouldn’t there be salty spray?  But it doesn’t matter.  There is debris everywhere fluttering about and then, suddenly I am up above the waves flying just above the surf and there are new things to do, confidently.

And when I return, awake, a second later, the vision remains so vital that I cannot move on from the waves cresting and the garbage fluttering as I try to return to the work in the comfy chair.  I toggle to the paper.  It isn’t work, but it eases one into the work that one should do.  The news so sad.  A bus load of Yemeni kids, all photographing one another and stopping somewhere for a meal, found themselves targeted by a missile, and blown to pieces.  Someone in Saudi Arabia, perhaps someone closer to home, presumably made a ghastly mistake, though no one has taken credit.  The paper has photos of the them from right before the missile struck.  Innocent, carefree, smiling, on a trip like I made or my kids have made. 

When I visited my old friend in Oakland with my daughter last week, we paused before we headed over to consider what sort of gift we should bring. He and his wife had recently adopted a lovely infant boy.  Rather than rattles or pj’s that will be too small in two weeks, if they ever fit at all, we agreed that books were a good bet and though gratification would need to be delayed by a few days, we could do the needful, with a few clicks on Amazon.   “What should we get him?  What were your favorite books that you remember from that time?”  I asked her.  I knew what was most fun to read to them, books that probably evoked the most gripping memories of my own childhood.  She didn’t hesitate and stated that “Tikki Tikki Tembo”, the illustrated children’s book by Arlene Mosel, from 1968 was the one she’d be insisting upon.

I’m not sure that book was read to me back when it was published.  We might have had it, or perhaps it was for my sister a few years later.  But we certainly read it every day for a few months to my older daughter when she was young and we lived there in San Francisco.  The absurdly long name that is repeated over and over anchors an absurd wonder.  The horrible accident that befalls the older brother and the prolonged rescue that hinges upon his name grab fast hold of a young mind’s attention.  And the fact that it has a silly if definite moral at the end, that suggests insight into why the Chinese have the comparatively short names they do, must have been particularly meaningful for my older daughter.   

It’s in his hands now.  Amazon tells me it arrived today.  And as perhaps this little boy will also love the book.  But it is unlikely to happen, unless the parents to enjoy having to repeat number-one-son’s outrageously long name, over and over aloud.  May he and all little people grow safely without having to ever find themselves the target of something fired anonymously, from far away.

Thursday 8/09/18