A while ago Jason got a much anticipated new video game and proceeded to play the game at every opportunity in an attempt to master the different levels. Of course, with every untimely death of his game personality he would hit the "reset" button on the game and begin anew. One evening, while we were wishing we could watch television, but had to wait till he could get to a point where he could save his game Mallorie, in a rare teenage moment of reflection said "wouldn't it be nice if life had a retry button?" (It is actually a "reset" button, but Mallorie is not only a teenager, but also is a little bit blonde and has a little bit of polish in her, so we let some things slide.) We began tossing about different scenarios where we could use the "retry" button. Mess up on a test -- retry; life's most embarrassing moment -- retry; open mouth insert foot -- retry, and so on. Mallorie and I were having quite a time with this when Hannah came walking out of the bathroom with one square of toilet paper. I asked her what she was doing with the one square of toilet paper and she informed me she was making a blanket for one of her toy animals -- hmmm, retry. Hannah went through a love affair phase with toilet paper much like the father in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" had with Windex -- this too has passed.
At any rate, Mallorie then asked me "Mom, if you could hit the retry button would you marry Kevin earlier and have us with him instead?" It was at this moment that I decided to pass along a bit of profundity that my father had shared with me when I was about her age -- "We are each a product of our yesterdays." There you go, there it is. I'm sure Mallorie didn't get it any more than I did when I was in junior high -- after all at 13 you have your whole life ahead of you, and the idea that not doing homework tonight might be why you can't go to the dance on Friday eludes you. I swear that teenagers and dogs have about the same attention span for things that don't really captivate them (for dogs it is food, for teenage girls it is the next shopping trip at the mall). Although we will all at some time in our lives have things we wish we had done or had not done or could change, everything we did or didn't do has created who we are and where we are today and everything we do or don't do today will make our life what it is tomorrow. I explained to Mallorie that I wouldn't change anything in my life if it meant I didn't have each and every one of my children right when I had them and that everything that happened in my life before has brought me to where I am now, which is a really good place to be.
In our world today where people do not seem to want to face consequences for their behaviors I'm sure that a "retry" button would be a welcome invention; but the reality is simple, constant, science based and quite practical -- for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction/for every to there is a fro/for every high there is a low (taken from Disney's The Sword and the Stone) and we are each a product of our yesterdays. In our world of temporary, disposable and "retry" I think this is one of the most important lesson we can teach our children in the classroom of life.
Monday evening Copper Beech put on their Spring Instrumental concert. I attended my twenty-somethingth concert as a parent. The children were nervous and excited at the same time. Excited to share with their parents all their hard work through the year and nervous that they may play a wrong note. We were treated to the old standards -- Lightly Row, Owed to Joy and Cannon in D as well as a medley of nursery rhyme songs -- Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Mary Had a Little Lamb -- all apparently rights of passage for the beginner musician. Only a parent who has attended twenty-some concerts may remotely pick up a wrong note, and even then it is unlikely because we are all so filled with pride at seeing our children up on stage in their black and white attire that we overlook the occasional squeak of the bow or clarinet.
Next month I will attend the Junior High Orchestra concert where the songs will be different and more sophisticated and the sound will be more pleasing to the ear, but missing will be the innocence and stary eyes. We parents will still be filled with pride, but our teenage children will be more concerned with how they look, that they actually played all the correct notes and what their peers thought of their performance than with whether or not their parents could see them up on stage.
