a smashing spirit

Not too long ago, I asked Frances what she thinks she'll like to do for fun when she's older. Probably the things I like to do now, she said. Read books, make pictures, write, listen to music. Stuff like that.

Her prescience caught me off guard. It helped me to see the continuity of my own inclinations throughout my life, and so I have little doubt that Frances will love books and art and music as an adult. But what about Gabriel? The things he likes now are zooming trucks and trains around, doing outrageously expressive superhero dances while singing impromptu superhero anthems, throwing and kicking balls, and fantasizing about destruction of all sorts.

To be fair, he also loves to draw. Machinery and trucks and balls, mostly.

Let me tell you a little more about the superhero song and dance numbers. His acquaintance with superheros is shockingly slight, considering how deeply they have moved into his soul. When he gets in the Superhero Zone, Gabriel bends his knees deeply and plants his feet wide apart. His voice descends two octaves. Think stability; think power center. Gabriel taps into a way of moving that I found completely counter-intuitive in my college African dancing days. We former ballet types would be crossing the floor, tugged upward by an invisible thread connecting our sternums to the sky, while the teacher would shout GET. DOWN. LOW. Lower! It was something I had to learn, bending my knees deeply and moving my weight down into my hips. But Gabriel, at two? The boy gets down low.

Channeling Spiderman today, Gabriel punched the air and ran and kicked and twirled. In the midst of this toddler capoeira routine he was breathlessly singing/shouting: Spiderman! Does whatever he can! SPIDERMAN! Yeah yeah Spiderman! Usually during this song there are some repetitive boom boom boom bash phrases thrown in as well as evocative details about Spiderman's violent pasttimes. Today he sang convincingly about how Spiderman "smashes and cuts people."

Woah! Really? Like, with a knife? I was taken aback for a moment, but the truth is I feel pure awed delight when I watch Gabriel embody his superhero side, even when cutting and smashing are involved. He glows with energy and happiness, asserting himself completely in his imaginary world (which blends so readily with reality for him).  How remote from my own experience! I can only stand back and grin. 

But what will happen to this creative love of power? I know that when he is in a classroom with ten other kids who also like to play with sticks, chances are slim that he will have a teacher who can simultaneously embrace the superhero and maintain order. That said, my inner mama tigress starts to stir and rage at the very thought of somebody crushing his outrageous testostorone-fueled enthusiasm for the world.

I wonder what he will do for fun when he's older. I wonder how boys grow up to become men who can still feel and cherish that essential love of power and motion within themselves. There must be some expression of this possible beyond sports fandom!

Ah, but wait. My dad read comic books until his dying day. He loved to run off the trail and holler as he heaved dead trees down to the forest floor, told dirty jokes with gusto, and would wrestle on the rug with any dog or kid who walked in the front door. The man liked to knock things over. Just like Gabriel. Maybe that's why I sometimes feel a joy so big it almost hurts as I watch my little boy enact noisy dinosaur battles at the kitchen table.

So I guess I know from experience that superheros can find a place for themselves, even in our techonological world. There are still towers to crash. Even so, as I anticipate kid institutions that don't always sit easy with robust physicality and boundless, assertive imaginary play, I feel a little protective of my boy. Hello? Future teachers and coaches and Sunday School leaders out there? Are you listening? Beware the tigress.