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| I am thinking of the journey of story-telling for Fathers Day. I want to do 15 story-telling posts about games my dad would play. |
Like the joke – why do firemen wear red suspenders?
Answer: To hold their pants up.
But when I am searching for a way to see if I can engage with someone, whom I think is just the right age, out pops that riddle and I pass it on.
One of my parent tapes. My father' gift to me.
So for Fathers Day 2020, I am going to write some posts about my dad, mostly about his games. To begin, my father told me that my mother adored first baby, me. I tore her apart when I was birthed, she was little, I was big and the doctor was drunk. She tied me to her heart, and I took much of her attention. When she was expecting her second baby, Doral said to her, “Too bad for the next baby. You have given all of your love to Arta and there will be nothing left for the second.” Wyora must have had to think about that, for he said she told him later, no, the second baby also has all over her love. Nothing had to be divided. There was just more love.
Now why did he have to tell that story so many times. And why do I think of that story now, when an acquaintance becomes a friend, then a trusted friend, then a loved one. I never feel as though someone has been squeezed out, or moved over. Just that there is more. So to all of my loved ones, I am going to offer more, by way of stories about parents, and specifically about my dad for Father’s Day.
I asked Wyora about Doral and their early married life. “Doral didn’t pay much attention to the children until they could play games.” I thought about my dad and my mother: he so athletic, her unable to catch a ball, him so logical and question, her so believing and trusting; together teamed to raise 9 children. I am left with a story-telling heritage from him; a service heritage from her. She is the one from whom I learned all of the finger games. Piggy Wig & Piggy Wee, A Little Boy Went Walking, This Little Pig Went to Market. I know every nursery rhyme and if it is set to music, I can sing it for you as well. I can’t remember learning any of this, but I know then.
As a twenty-year old, I noted that my five-year-old brother could take The Illustrated Children’s Song Book and by turning the pages and being cued by the pictures on each page, sing through the whole book, long before he could read. After singing “Oh give me a home where the buffalo roam / where the deer and the antelope play / where seldom is heard … he stopped there in the song, pointed to the picture of the cowboy and said to me, “There is Seldom right there, that guy with the lasso.” Glen could read pictures.
I have played all of the circle games as have my younger brothers and sisters: Farm in the Dell, London Bridges, Go In and Out the Window.
Somewhere between Red Rover, Red Rover and the first line of the poem, “I went to see my grandmother on a cold and wintery day”, there is a cross-over and what my mother taught me is left behind. My dad’s figure looms. He was the main person teaching the songs and games.
One of my parent tapes. My father' gift to me.
So for Fathers Day 2020, I am going to write some posts about my dad, mostly about his games. To begin, my father told me that my mother adored first baby, me. I tore her apart when I was birthed, she was little, I was big and the doctor was drunk. She tied me to her heart, and I took much of her attention. When she was expecting her second baby, Doral said to her, “Too bad for the next baby. You have given all of your love to Arta and there will be nothing left for the second.” Wyora must have had to think about that, for he said she told him later, no, the second baby also has all over her love. Nothing had to be divided. There was just more love.
Now why did he have to tell that story so many times. And why do I think of that story now, when an acquaintance becomes a friend, then a trusted friend, then a loved one. I never feel as though someone has been squeezed out, or moved over. Just that there is more. So to all of my loved ones, I am going to offer more, by way of stories about parents, and specifically about my dad for Father’s Day.
I asked Wyora about Doral and their early married life. “Doral didn’t pay much attention to the children until they could play games.” I thought about my dad and my mother: he so athletic, her unable to catch a ball, him so logical and question, her so believing and trusting; together teamed to raise 9 children. I am left with a story-telling heritage from him; a service heritage from her. She is the one from whom I learned all of the finger games. Piggy Wig & Piggy Wee, A Little Boy Went Walking, This Little Pig Went to Market. I know every nursery rhyme and if it is set to music, I can sing it for you as well. I can’t remember learning any of this, but I know then.
As a twenty-year old, I noted that my five-year-old brother could take The Illustrated Children’s Song Book and by turning the pages and being cued by the pictures on each page, sing through the whole book, long before he could read. After singing “Oh give me a home where the buffalo roam / where the deer and the antelope play / where seldom is heard … he stopped there in the song, pointed to the picture of the cowboy and said to me, “There is Seldom right there, that guy with the lasso.” Glen could read pictures.
I have played all of the circle games as have my younger brothers and sisters: Farm in the Dell, London Bridges, Go In and Out the Window.
Somewhere between Red Rover, Red Rover and the first line of the poem, “I went to see my grandmother on a cold and wintery day”, there is a cross-over and what my mother taught me is left behind. My dad’s figure looms. He was the main person teaching the songs and games.
That is the moment she talked about: there was a time when the children wanted to play his games.
(#1 of 15, to be continued )
Arta
(#1 of 15, to be continued )
Arta
This reminds me of the Gitxsan saying about grandparents spitting in their grandchildren's ears. I guess it also applies to parenting. I love this story of different ways of teaching and playing and showing love.
ReplyDeleteThank you for reading the story. And thank you for seeing the parenting. I think we both parent how our parents parented us, and then we parent beyond that.
ReplyDeleteI am trying to capture how much Doral played with us as teens. I didn't know that he was parenting others in the family. I thought it was a one way relationship between him and me.
That 5-year-old in your story in turn passed the parenting gifts he received from his parent not just to his children but also to my son and to me. He was the first to play basketball with David, teaching him about peripheral vision at 4 years of age. He was the first to teach David how to ride his bike in a circle at age 5, and that you also want to practice going clockwise, not just counter-clockwise. Joaquim shares that he taught him how to turn the compost. And he taught me, parent with ideas not things when I heard him say to David, "when you are in Spain for Christmas, if you think of me, don't buy me anything, just look on the beach for a rock I might like to have."
ReplyDelete