Monday, Jan. 19, 2004 - 10:15 am
Um... I'm sorry.
This relationship just isn't working for me.
I'm at www.dailypreciousness.org now. So change that bookmark.
“Sometimes, I see things. And then they happen,” he said. “And it’s … it’s kinda scary. I just wanted to learn more about it.”
That’s what Patrick, a quiet, doe-eyed 4th grader told me Thursday in a troubled tone. I was performing a reference interview to try to get at what he needed for his homework. He was very noncommittal in his answers. I sensed that it wasn’t for homework. “Well, if it’s private, that’s fine, too. Just let me know if you need anything, okay?”
“Well, things have been really strange for me… lately. I … see things.” And that’s when he told me that he “saw things” and wanted to learn more about what it meant to have prophetic visions.
I helped him find ESP in the encyclopedia. I usually make fun of that crazy pet psychic lady on TV (where the former model/psychic geezer says things like, “Oh, lovey, your pet poodle says that she feels embarrassed by this awful haircut!”), but this was a frightened little boy who, by coincidence, by overactive imagination, or, just maybe, by some commingling of rarified genetic anomalies, believed he was different from other people.
He tapped his fingers nervously on a table, performing imaginary arpeggios. He was honestly afraid, in manner of all frightened children. And, with a rare and unlikely rush of compassion, I felt that he needed more than just the usual research advice.
“Have you talked to Mom and Dad about it?” I inquired. “I know that it can be hard to talk to them, and it’s even embarrassing sometimes, but they really can help.”
“NO,” he replied, resolutely, as if that was the worst path imaginable. “And I don’t want to tell my friends, either, ‘cause they already think I’m weird… no, I don’t want to tell anybody about it.”
Well, of course he did want to talk about it – otherwise, why would he have brought it up.
“And that’s fine, too. You don’t have to tell anyone. It’s okay to have secrets, as long as they don’t make you feel bad. One of the best things about reading is that it gives me a rich inner life. I mean, that’s the whole point of reading. It’s an entire world right between your ears,” I told him, pointing to my forehead.
“Yeah. I see what you mean.”
“But I’d bet that if you told an adult that you trust that you will feel a lot better… it’s great to get things off of your chest, you know?”
I told him this, knowing that he wouldn’t count me – his librarian – among the group “adults that he really trusts,” but then he shocked me by saying, with the simple wisdom of youth, “Actually, I just did.” And he offered a genuinely shy, but still genuinely warm smile of openness and vulnerability.
Touched by the beauty and warmth of our exchange, I was on a heartfelt high the rest of the day.
