Simply Brilliant

Teenage Juggling

The other day I brought my 14 year old son to work with me. He didn’t actually come into my workplace; I dropped him off at the library. At noon I bought some lunch and met him at the library. We ate on the lawn in the shade of a poplar tree. My 14-year-old son is the third of my seven children and the third of my four sons. Although he has hit teenagedom he has not yet gone over to the dark side. He still seems to enjoy spending time with his dad. In spite of my middle-age geeserhood he shows no embarrassment when seen with me in public. This pleases me very much because he is a good-looking, intelligent boy who has many engaging pursuits and I would miss his company terribly should he ever decide that he didn’t have time for me.

While we ate lunch under the tree he sat close to me and rested his elbow on my knee as he worked on his beef and cheddar. I could feel the ease he felt with me and that made me intensely happy. We chatted about things in general and he cried “Slug Bug!” and slugged me when we saw an old Volkswagen Beetle drive by. He commented that he was a little chilly from the breeze that was blowing. He thought it was because of the cold lemonade he had just drunk. I know it was because he has no fat on his bones and thus, no insulation.

He and I had fought the night before. It wasn’t a verbal fight, but a physical fight. There was no anger involved. We were at our taekwondo class and it was sparring night. The instructor let him choose who he wanted to fight and he chose me. We had done some contact drills just before and I think he sensed weakness in me. I am 230 pounds and he is maybe 100 pounds. He should have been very frightened, but he wasn’t. I tried to increase the intimidation factor by announcing in WWF fashion that I was going to knock him down before the match ended. He just grinned. When the instructor started the match he whooped and hollered and let off several volleys of kicks and spins. I fought back, but it looked something like a bear taking swipes at a fly buzzing around his head. But then he made a mistake by pausing in the wrong place for a half-second too long—I landed a back kick that picked him up and set him down on his butt. Oh what a feeling! Everyone watching laughed and I turned to see him getting up off the floor . . . grinning. In the end he may have won on points, but I got my shot in. That was the first time I had ever sparred him and I felt a bonding through it.

After we ate we broke out the juggling equipment we had brought. This was the reason I had brought him to work in the first place—to have a full hour at noon to juggle with him. Juggling is one of his major interests in life presently. I don’t know how he got interested in it, but most of his discretionary income is spent on juggling related equipment. All the time he is asking me to come watch some juggling videos he has found on the internet or has purchased on DVD. His enthusiasm is so great that I have been inspired to learn what I can with him. He is much better than I am at any juggling endeavor, but he shows great patience and I struggle and learn. Although we each work on individual juggling tricks, it is the team tricks where we have the most fun. We like to juggle three and steal from each other. Today we finally learn to successfully pass to each other as we each juggle three. I am excited as a kid the first time we both keep juggling after we pass. He is happy too. Then we take five cubes and in full shower mode pass them between us. We bring our average time before failure up quite a ways and again I am excited.

My lunch time is up all too soon and I have to go back to work. My son stays at the library where he plays chess with the kids, juggles for anyone who wants to watch, and makes balloon figures for kids who are leaving the library. When I pick him up after work he is having a juggling discussion with a librarian. When he gets in the car he brings that unadulterated energy of youth with him as he tells me about how his afternoon went. I wish he would talk all the way during the hour drive home, but just fifteen minutes down the road he puts his seat back down and soon is sleeping with his mouth open. Sleeping or not he is still with me and I am happy. He will never really understand how he has taken one of my thousands of ordinary work days and made it extraordinary.

posted by PapaT @ 1:50 PM