Metaphors are the Darndest Things. They Frame Reality. (Part One)

The college semester began yesterday.  Absolutely exhausted after the long ride home from Beloit, I walked into the warmth and busyness of the kitchen where surprisingly, delightfully, everyone was gathered.  At the table our host daughter Sina was helping Miss S. to learn her weekly spelling words, and Padster drove his matchbox cars over cucumber slices while deciding whether to eat them. Bal stood over the range adding spices to the rasam, which by the rich garlicky smell of it, seemed to be in the final stages of preparation.   

No matter how ideal, the imitation
of life is a tad more horrifying than . . .

“Mom!” everyone cried in greeting. 

I’ll admit that I had had a rather uncanny feeling I had seen this scene in The Stepford Wives, but I let it slide off my shoulders.  What good is it to look a gift horse in the mouth?  After asking Sina about her semester exams and giving greetings and kisses to all, I excused myself to take a hot shower.  

When I reemerged, the world was normal again.  From the door of the bathroom I could hear one kid whining with hunger, one parent speaking sternly, one kid crying. 

Ahh. Home.  I thought. 

From Sona’s room Sina was speaking softly.  “It’s okay Sons.  I know you’re disappointed in having gotten 8 words wrong, but you’ll get better.   I feel the same way in APP— I struggle all the time.  I know you’ll do well by the time of the test.“ 

I smiled, touched by her tenderness.    As she reemerged in the hallway, I gave her a hug.  “Thanks, sweetie.”

“No problem,” she said with a knowing smile.

As I went into Miss S.’s room, she sat hunched over at the edge of the bed, crying softly.  

“What’s going on, chica?” I asked cheerfully.

“I didn’t know a lot of my words!” she sobbed. 

“Hey, that happens . . . and it occasionally should.”

“Huh?”   

“Of course!  What is school for if we don’t struggle a bit and have to extend beyond what comes easy to us? Besides, could you imagine what it would be like to get everything right all of the time?  How boring!”

“I don’t know,” she replied, with an air of resignation, holding back tears.

“Is there something else going on?”

The dam broke loose.  “It’s just that. . . It’s just that . . .    I wish we had a nice family!”  Tears flowed in a torrent.  

The game was a-foot.  

...the silly and creepy realities
of a life lived  unscripted.

“A nice family?”  I asked as a point of clarification, thinking about the Cleavers or, for that matter the weird simulacra I had just witnessed in the kitchen. 

“Yeah!  Like Samantha’s family!”  Tears flowed like the Niagara.

I smiled, thinking of her friend Samantha’s family. They are indeed quite friendly, polite and personable people.  But I couldn’t quite understand what made them seem that much nicer than us that it became an occasion for tears. 

“Honey, what do you mean by nice?” I pressed on.    

“I mean they don’t talk about farting at the table and laugh at disgusting jokes, okay?” she blurted out.   “They’re nice.”   She grabbed a piece of crumpled paper.  “Our family is this crumpled piece of paper . . . life should be smoother.”  

God help me for being a language freak.  Despite the seriousness of her sentiment I found myself smiling with delight at the metaphor.    

Part Two  Part Three