memory picture

There he is, at his school winter concert this afternoon. Gabriel is the one looking my way.

He's been opening a window into his private world lately. I've always accused the kid of serious spacey-ness. When he's drawing or playing with legos, I repeat requests three or four times before he even registers that I'm talking to him. It takes ten minutes to put on one sneaker. Then he can't find the other, gets distracted, and wanders off with one shoe on until someone notices and we are already running late. Then he says stop rushing me you guys!

The other evening I got frustrated with him, repeatedly urging him to brush his teeth, to no avail. Mama, he finally replied, don't you ever have to think about battles?

What?

You know, the weapons the soldiers are carrying, and their coat of arms, and how they put ladders up the castle walls, and how the other soldiers will push their ladders over as they're climbing up, and how they jump down just in time?

Well, no. I don't ever have to think about battles. Not like that, anyway.

(Shock.) You don't??

I'm afraid I disappointed. But nonetheless - he's been telling me about the stories in his mind that he is compelled to detail and flesh out. Most of his narratives are in pictures, which isn't surprising, as he is most content when drawing. I am fascinated. His sisters tend to articulate every thought that passes through their busy minds, but most of his typically remain unspoken.

Tonight he told me about memory pictures:

Mama, when I want to remember something, I take a picture of it. I focus on it, and I take a picture in my mind. Then I never, never forget it. Like I took a picture of the blue heron we saw when we went tubing in North Carolina.

(We saw a blue heron?)

And I took pictures when we were in Berkeley Springs.

-When were we in Berkeley Springs with you?

Mama, we were there. I know. I remember a lot from that trip.

-Oh. Right. What else?

One time, one of my earliest pictures, is from riding in the car with James and Thomas. I could see Miss Brigette's hair and the light coming in the window, and I could see a sign with enormous white letters.

(He must have been three).

-Do you ever take a picture in your mind without meaning to?

Yes. I don't always know that it is happening. But those stay forever, too.

(I didn't ask for examples. The first that came to my own mind were some of the sad moments of these past few months).

I think my very first picture is nursing in the chair with you.

(He told me about this memory a few weeks ago: there was a dotted piece of fabric he could see on the chair [his G blanket, that Christine made for him as a baby], and the light was dim, and it was just before bedtime, and I was singing to him, and he felt so warm and like he didn't want to fall asleep but he was falling asleep.)

(He weaned a couple of months after he turned two).


Friends. It is a privilege to be a witness to their becoming. Who will this marvelous boy grow up to be?