Thursday, October 15, 2009

MAGIC IN SHORT OCTOBERS & MESSAGE IN LONG LINES

OCTOBER'S MAGIC -- SWEET BUT SHORT

Here's one of October's ironies -- adults are writing about how adults have stolen Halloween from kids. Good intentions, to be sure, and yet these are adults writing to adults. If adults honestly wish to release the tethered tiger of kiddy magic this month, the best thing we might do is shut up and listen....!

The little ones are over-dosed on the adult-designed Halloween regalia already stuffing the aisles of their local stores. You know, that gaudy gorge of baubles thoroughly test-marketed by the big boys at the big toy plants. I mean, selling to kids is not kid stuff! It takes the profit-hungry skills of TV's "Mad Men" to plumb the psychic depths of ages 3 to 13...to scrape up every possible subconscious clue to their buy-me-this appetites... to run-it-up-the-flag smarts so as to find the most responsive greed-gene.

But for the parent who honestly wants to peer in -- maybe even share in -- the adult-free kiddieland of October magic, all we have to do is do nothing. Really! Just respectfully listen in on the little one's late-afternoon and early-evening conversations. On the phone, on their facebook, but if possible the ones they have dear to their magical hearts when cuddled up with a friend. Perhaps on the front porch (there are front porches still, aren't there?), or while tumbling through a rainbow of fallen leaves, or especially when looking out their bedroom windows at night searching for broomsticks in the sky.

Please, don't misunderstand. This isn't a pitch for eavesdropping; consider it only an invitation to get into honest touch with their intuitive magic. And -- Wall-Street-forbid -- this is not an indictment of adult American free enterprise. Simply one adult-child calling out in the October winds to those adult-children still left. We have already adult-ized our children quite enough. Personal computers, mobile communicators, pre-teen proms, grown-up clothes and courses and camps. Why rush them...? Is our adulthood really so much more desirable and compelling than their childhood...?

George Bernard Shaw famously said: "Youth is wasted on the young." I see his point, but I don't accept it. Youth -- unfettered and at least briefly protected -- is not at all a waste. It is that terribly brief flicker of flame that lights up vast wonderlands of magic, mystery, and uncynical happiness. We travel it only once. However, just because we can't travel it anymore, that's no reason to rush it along for them by dressing it up with the things of adulthood.

October and its day-counting-days up to Halloween night is perhaps the last real childhood corner of the world. We adults have appropriated Thanksgiving and Christmas; why not let the kids have October. And if in doing that we may also wish to listen in a little, that's perfectly fine. It certainly can't hurt us. It might just help heal us.

DECODING THE LINES YOU'RE STUCK IN

No one likes lines. No one likes being in lines. However, have you ever considered some of the eureka messages hidden in these lines...?

Post office lines are, without doubt, the very worst. The clerks don't want to be here...the customers don't want to wait for clerks who don't want to be here...and the environment has all the antiseptic charm of all government buildings. But scan those customers and you can get a lesson in life. The impatient businessman who actually thinks what he's planning to mail is actually important to his world. Or the teenager who doesn't even know she's here, because she's a world away giggling on her Blackberry. Or the sweet little old lady who looks sweet until she thinks you're trying to rush her.

Supermarket checkout lines are a tad better. Impatience, sure, but at least here the customers are lined up in an environment rich with tantalizing displays and appetizing aromas. You sense the message of hope in their eyes as they envision eventually enjoying what they've just purchased.

The worst of lines are those at the pharmacies. Watch the computer chaos at the counter when customer and pharmacist have to wait for the screen to tell them if this prescription is approved, rejected, referred to another source, requires further identification, insists on cash. At least when you buy a book of stamps or a bag iof apples, everyone gets the same thing. When it comes to health care coverage, there are a gazillion plans, forms, deductions, pre-existing conditions, small-print escape clauses, and enough delays to kill half the patients still waiting for an answer.

If ever there was a battle-cry for universal health care reform -- you can hear it at the lines at the pharmacy!





2 comments:

  1. To answer your question:
    "Is our adulthood really so much more desirable and compelling than their childhood...?"

    I answer a bellowing NO! It's amazing how the youth of today want to be adults so quickly...and how society forces it on them. Ah if only I had a time machine!

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  2. Time machines would be fascinating...if we travel back we're likely to discover what we missed when we were there. The joy of innocence and freedom in contrast to the knowledge and restraints of adulthood. No, we can't all be Peter Pan; but there are those among us who still are. Like actors, singers, k-12 teachers, and boys playing in the NFL

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