Wednesday, May 6, 2009

A Little Slow


A couple of days ago, as I shopped for bread, milk, and orange juice, I ran into an elderly friend who commented on the elementary track meet held at our school the day before.

“I saw your little grandson,” she remarked. “He was running in a race.”
She smiled sweetly, “Cute little guy, kinda slow and a little behind everybody, but it seemed like he was having a lot of fun.”

I smiled sweetly back. She meant well.
But what I wanted to do was scream.
Why the silly track meets anyway? He’s in pre-school, for Heaven’s sake!

Must it all begin so early, this idolizing of competitive athletic prowess?
Does it even matter that he knows capitals, and can locate their countries on a map, that he can tell you about the four moons of Jupiter, even name them? He’s reading fourth-grade books for fun and is fascinated by how the body systems work. Everyone else is learning their numbers and beginning to sound out hat and mat. He sits through boring days at pre-school, coloring pictures that go with the letter K, while he imagines his own world on dwarf, twin planets that orbit the star Alexandra in a galaxy called Ellipse

“He’s a little slow,” she said.
I guess it’s a good thing he doesn’t realize it yet.

2 comments:

Carina said...

Thanks for being a staunch defender for the little guy. I have a feeling he's going to need that more as he grows.

aftergrace said...

Yes, yes, yes, thank you for defending Zaya. This world is too consumed with winning the race, how about those of us who are in the race running at our own pace?