pura vida

Were you around when Vien was having a ‘brave’ phase? Vien sang this pop song for Kate’s piano studio, a musical showcase, and also every second of every day in between.

Sidenote: This song has been replaced by Adele’s Easy on Me in our house. In that it is being sung at full volume. All the time. I am so poorly suited to noise! Ack! My ears are trying to help me with this by going deaf, but still.

Sidenote to self: It is a good hobby to sing and play piano! So good! And an amazing feelings release that has replaced throwing things at other people. So just deal and enjoy the irony of V singing so passionately about how ‘I was still a child/Didn’t get the chance to/Feel the world around me’ (like, you are still a child, right? We could totally rectify this situation).

Needless to say, Easy on Me has me missing Brave. Not only is Vien’s vocal range better suited to Brave (maybe? or is that a reflection of my current auditory overload), it fits our moment better. We are so brave! Vien, in particular, is so BRAVE! I know I spent some time lamenting the tears, stress and tantrums it took to get here, but I want to celebrate that we’re here and Vien, in particular, is thriving.

Vien is really brave! Did I already say that? I was so surprised when Vien mentioned the student government, because I was like … that’s really brave for a nonbinary 7th grader new to the school, with a class full of rowdy boys. I was tempted, I’m ashamed to say, to dissuade this endeavor because it was a voting competition and I was worried about the aftermath. Instead, I had a good mom moment and asked about the campaign strategy. Vien had thought it all out: being nonbinary was a superpower because the boys (definitely not friends), naturally, would vote for a boy, while the girls (potential friends and Taylor Swift afficionados) would vote for someone who understood their interests. I let it be and fortunately everyone running in class 7B won because there were no candidates in 7A. Yay! Everybody wins. Huge sigh of relief.

SGA has special shirts and a special meeting time and is all very important, something that makes Vien happy. There was one bum day during antibullying week. Apparently the anti-bullying signs were subpar? SGA had brainstormed karaoke and games, but the results were unsatisfactory? I’m still getting to the bottom of this disastrous event that spawned a total meltdown. From what I understand, the outcome did not live up to the high standards of the Student Government Association … at least one member anyway.

I was also worried about making friends but Vien has been charting a path there. Vien got invited/self invited (unclear) to a cookie making playdate with a very sweet 8th grade girl, which turned out to be:

“What’s that word when you don’t know the person very well, and you have nothing to say to them? Tense?”

“Awkward?”

“Yes, awkward. That’s the word.”

Bingo! Sometimes making friends is this way.

But when Vien went to Carolina Lodge on the 7th grade class trip, they reemerged with a real, bonafied non-awkward friend. I was very worried about this trip because the school (which is extremely normy and draconian in the worst way possible) made a big deal about boys not going into the girls cabins and also the ‘dress code’ which is no spaghetti straps and short shorts. Hello 1995! Also, hello it’s 90 degrees here all the time! Finally, hello you can’t keep us down with your slut shaming. Sorry, it’s just where my brain goes with this one. Don’t they have better things to do with their time than worry about 7th graders showing their shoulders off? How about worrying about the insanely rowdy 2/3 of the class that disrupts everything all the time? I guess it’s not worth sending an email about that … Anyway, Vien’s people are these risque shoulder-showing girls for the most part, so I was very worried this trip was going to be far from fun. But somehow, fun was had. Friends were made at mealtimes while everyone was dressed in their habits spinning yarn, apparently. Cabins were ding dong ditched, kids were tired, and Vien returned with a handful of photos hilariously displayed in this post, none the worse for a potentially unenjoyable overnight class trip.

The school, for all its strangeness (Canadian Trumpers, biting iguanas, silly dress codes, inane focus on tardiness … it will all make sense to you someday when we sit and chat about it) is really great for Vien. It is way more academic than New Brighton, which is right up Vien’s alley. My kids are actually reading BOOKS for school. What? I know it’s hard to believe. Vien was captivated by Tuck Everlasting, and we discussed whether we would drink the magical spring water that gives eternal life, or pour it instead on a toad:

What about the poor toad?
How sentient are toads?
Why do you think it made the Tuck family so sad to live forever?
Would it have the same effect on toads?

Anyway, this conversation felt so right to me and was so deeply satisfying that I almost forgave the school for its normy ways. Honestly, the small size of the school, the ability for Vien to join extra clubs and group projects, to decide to be the only kid swimming on a rainy day and have the teacher still show up and teach in the rain, to really engage, is worth it. The school, against all appearances, is somehow meeting Vien halfway. It’s saying to Vien: if you are brave and you put yourself out there and sing karaoke and do more, be more, the world will be there for it.

Which is powerful. I dunno, when I was raised, I felt like the world told me to be practical. Be practical, keep your head down. Remember you’re small, remember this is ‘the way things are.’

But in taking this journey, all of us have had to be big and so brave. And I’m just here trying on my best day to cheer it on, and on my worst day to bite my tongue and keep my practicality to myself, because the world doesn’t need us to flow with the current of ‘the way things are’ anymore. Where has that gotten us? I want to teach my kids to keep dreaming about a different future. And yeah, the world sucks sometimes and it beats you down with its subpar karaoke and lame games, but keep imagining something better. Because if we don’t dream it, it surely won’t happen.