when kids ask embarrassing questions

Regrouping

I made refrigerator pickles and I wish you were here to taste them with me. Sweet and spicy, they reflect my inner space where some things burn and others are sweet and easy.

Never start with a metaphor, my inner critic says. What does he know? He’s actually been kind of mean lately. Nasty critic.

Yesterday, I had two conversations, simple questions, really, that stuck with me.

I tutor a bright little kid who should be learning to hang from a jungle gym, but instead, sits with me twice a week to read and write and perform addition that requires regrouping. Carry the one, I hear myself say despite the change in vocabulary.

Why did we rename it regrouping? What was so wrong with carrying the one?

Personally, I think that to learn early that some ideas need to be carried over is a worthy cause. Carry it until you can put it down where it belongs. Snippets of ideas, litter, bits and pieces, and even addition should encourage you to carry the one to its proper place.

But no. Instead, we regroup.

This boy was too young for all of this, but if I didn’t do it, his parents would take him somewhere else. At least I could try to make it fun. I hadn’t worked with him all that often, but I already missed his older brother who, at twelve, read scientific texts that I couldn’t quite grasp about quantum mechanics, alternate universes, and astrophysics. He didn’t need tutoring either, but I knew I could help him become a better writer. Writing was his kryptonite. No matter how brilliant a person was, there would always be one area in which they didn’t excel. If we taught with that in mind, we wouldn’t put such an emphasis on classical academics and maybe we wouldn’t place brilliance on such a pedestal. It isn’t healthy.

But my little friend, the younger brother, is also bright and chatty and I love working with him on elementary pursuits like learning to carry and using second grade vocabulary in stories. He always grinned as he read and I had to keep my library books current because, if allowed, he would read five or six books while I was turned around and working with another student.

Yesterday, he stopped writing vocabulary sentences and asked me, “Why are you so big?”

He didn’t like to write any more than his brother did. I suspected it was a ploy to procrastinate.

“Excuse me? What was that?”

Sometimes, my poor ears disguise nice questions as rude ones and I wanted to make sure. My brain effectively fills in garbled language with words, sometimes curses, that I know can’t be what someone actually said. Surely, this boy was old enough to know better than to ask a woman about her weight. Surely.

“Why are you so big?” he repeated.

Ah, so it was what I thought. I took a deep breath and pushed down some resentment. Would this child benefit from a diatribe on sizeist thought and the new social justice? There’s a spot on the white walls of my classroom where I look whenever I am at a loss for words, as if patience exists in its expanse. I decided to tell him as much truth as I could muster despite my embarrassment.. This boy could easily become a doctor some day and I was going to educate him by answering his question as best as I could using medical terms.

“People have an organ called a thyroid and it sits right here on either side of your larynx. You can feel it when you swallow.”

I went on for a while about the function of the thyroid and a body’s metabolism. Maybe I went on for a little longer than I should have only because I could hear other ears in the room were listening. Maybe I wanted to shame anyone who believed that everyone’s metabolism worked the same way, who believed that fat people simply ate more than skinny people, who believed that fat people were somehow less. Maybe I kept talking medical metabolic smack so I wouldn’t do something embarrassing like yell or cry.

By the time I was done, I felt a little better having been allowed an opportunity to speak rather than simply endure attitudes that felt like sizeism in silence. I could tell I hadn’t talked completely excessively because my little friend was still trying to palpate his thyroid with the tips of his fingers at his throat.

It stayed with me, that question. Why are you so big? I wondered how it affected the other tutor in the room, a scrawny boy in high school who seemed to chafe at having to endure any comment I made to him. Was that sizeism, the assumption that a fat person wasn’t as smart, as worthy to be listened to as a thin one? Or was it that sense, when you’re in high school, that you know more than anyone else could possibly know? Was it ageism, the belief that old people were trivial, or was this boy preternaturally shy? Could my explanation possibly shift that huge chip on his shoulder?

Why are you so big?

It stayed with me when I left work to go volunteer at a festival where I would encourage people, kids mostly, to relax and write freely. Funny, how I was going to continue to work for another couple hours instead of going home to relax. I had volunteered to facilitate poetry at the haiku booth. My job continued.

And I did encourage people, kids mostly, to write haiku and to do their art on the little pieces of paper I gave them along with colorful pens I’d brought. The white pens on navy paper were popular. My co-booth-operator told people of the history of haiku. He was the expert while I was the cheerleader, encouraging people to write, to write anything.

I watched the sky darken while silhouetting trees on the horizon. I breathed in cool, clean air. I tried not to dance too overtly to music beating on the sides of the tent. In between students. I wrote poems on rocks in pink paint. Teaching outside is a joy. A breeze touched my cheek.

By the time we started taking down the exhibit, I thought I’d forgotten the boy’s question from earlier in my classroom.

“Can you return this Leatherman tool to that booth over there, to Arthur?” my haiku cohort asked.

I didn’t know who Arthur was, but I took it, walked across the aisle, and asked for Arthur. A skinny guy turned around who looked a little familiar. I’ve only just begun to get to know people in the larger town near me, the writers and the artists there, but I knew I’d met him at least once. He paused and stared at me for a minute with his Leatherman tool in his hand.

He was about to ask me something. The question came flooding back into my mind, the question. I imagined how I would answer that question if it came from him here.

“Why are you so big?”

I looked into his eyes, begging him not to ask me that question after such a long day. The music stopped. Time slowed. My eyes felt the potential to fill up and overflow. I actually held my breath with my mouth hanging open. Please.

“I’m a big fan of your work,” he said finally.

And with that, I felt like an overinflated balloon that had finally been let go. I wanted to spiral in circles and make raspberry noises all the way home, all the way home, where I could regroup.

Thank you for listening, jules