Holy Cross Church adjoins the Valle Crucis Conference Center and on this particular day a huge group of chaotic, carefree, just-on-the-cusp-of-self-realization fifth graders arrived at the conference center for their end-of-the-year school trip. They banged off the bus and immediately started running in every direction imaginable, like a fist full of marbles that have been dropped on the pavement. You can't quite follow all of them with your eyes, but you have a sense of where each and every one of them have gone. And boy were they everywhere. And the noise! Sheesh. You can tell you are getting older when the noise of young people doesn't interest you anymore, it just generally irritates you. And you wish they would be quite...these young, already slightly-aware-that-something-is-wrong-with-them fifth graders. They were banging on the piano, running up and down the stairs, yelling at each other. And I just stood in the doorway, looking at the chaos. And this is what I saw.
What I saw were clumps of young people sitting together. And the adults were sitting together too, desperately trying to talk to each other over the noise. And also trying not to look
uncomfortable themselves. And in the middle of all this racket there was one table with just one occupant. He was sitting by himself at the very edge of the table. And his chair was pushed under the table so as to position himself exactly in front of his plate. He was slouched down slightly, but not so much that he looked like he wanted to disappear, just that he might if urged to do so. His hair came down to right above his eyes in soft but stranded locks and he looked slightly smaller than the other kids, although it did not seem like he had a growth stint or anything. As a matter of fact he looked pretty ordinary to me, which is why I was puzzled.
Why wasn't he sitting with any of the other kids? And more importantly, why weren't they sitting with him? He didn't look to have any defining characteristics that made him subject to Darwin's theory. So why was he alone? I took a closer look and figured it out. I saw in his eyes sadness and oldness; you know, that wizened look that people get when they know things other people mostly don't know. The type of look that tells you that he sees things that other people don't see. He can read between the bull___ lines that adults feed him, and most of his peers have not caught up with him yet, and probably never will. He is content to be alone, although it makes him sad that he is. He wonders why he knows, feels, and sees things the other kids don't. And he also wonders why he can't just be like them. But he isn't. And he knows he isn't. So there he sat, wizened with this knowing that he won't be able to put into words for years yet.
And do you know what happened next? The best thing that could happen for this wizened, sad, but content-to-be-alone kid. A sad, wizened, but content-to-be-alone adult came to sit with him. I knew when I saw the adult sit down, that this would be small compensation for what this child really wants, which was to connect with his peers. But I also knew, that for now, it would be enough. The man that sat down with this fifth grader saw what I saw. As soon as the guy sat down I saw the younger man relax. He shoulders unslummped and his eyes grew interested. Here was someone he could talk to. Maybe not on the adult level that he already has a glimmer of, but at least a couple levels above where his peers were.
And maybe, just maybe, this adult would help him make some sense out of his differences. For you see, what I saw, was an adult who looked at this fifth grader and was right back there, being the sad, wizened kid who was to old to connect with his peers, and to young to connect with adults. So he is alone. And it is okay that he is alone, but sometimes it helps if a friend will just come and sit there with him.
What I saw were clumps of young people sitting together. And the adults were sitting together too, desperately trying to talk to each other over the noise. And also trying not to look
uncomfortable themselves. And in the middle of all this racket there was one table with just one occupant. He was sitting by himself at the very edge of the table. And his chair was pushed under the table so as to position himself exactly in front of his plate. He was slouched down slightly, but not so much that he looked like he wanted to disappear, just that he might if urged to do so. His hair came down to right above his eyes in soft but stranded locks and he looked slightly smaller than the other kids, although it did not seem like he had a growth stint or anything. As a matter of fact he looked pretty ordinary to me, which is why I was puzzled.Why wasn't he sitting with any of the other kids? And more importantly, why weren't they sitting with him? He didn't look to have any defining characteristics that made him subject to Darwin's theory. So why was he alone? I took a closer look and figured it out. I saw in his eyes sadness and oldness; you know, that wizened look that people get when they know things other people mostly don't know. The type of look that tells you that he sees things that other people don't see. He can read between the bull___ lines that adults feed him, and most of his peers have not caught up with him yet, and probably never will. He is content to be alone, although it makes him sad that he is. He wonders why he knows, feels, and sees things the other kids don't. And he also wonders why he can't just be like them. But he isn't. And he knows he isn't. So there he sat, wizened with this knowing that he won't be able to put into words for years yet.
And do you know what happened next? The best thing that could happen for this wizened, sad, but content-to-be-alone kid. A sad, wizened, but content-to-be-alone adult came to sit with him. I knew when I saw the adult sit down, that this would be small compensation for what this child really wants, which was to connect with his peers. But I also knew, that for now, it would be enough. The man that sat down with this fifth grader saw what I saw. As soon as the guy sat down I saw the younger man relax. He shoulders unslummped and his eyes grew interested. Here was someone he could talk to. Maybe not on the adult level that he already has a glimmer of, but at least a couple levels above where his peers were.And maybe, just maybe, this adult would help him make some sense out of his differences. For you see, what I saw, was an adult who looked at this fifth grader and was right back there, being the sad, wizened kid who was to old to connect with his peers, and to young to connect with adults. So he is alone. And it is okay that he is alone, but sometimes it helps if a friend will just come and sit there with him.
