* I’m not trying to call myself a blog star (did I coin a new phrase there?), but rather to give a small nod to the first video ever played on MTV. Almost-twelve-year-old me was there to watch it all go down, and damn it was cool. August 1, 1981 – we just passed MTV’s 31st birthday. Video changed everything.
It still does. I don’t know what it is about watching the video of Jonah in the last post, but I watch it & watch it & watch it again. It’s as if the video allows (forces?) me to step outside myself, seeing Boo through a stranger’s eyes. I can describe him until I’ve written a doctoral dissertation –but only the video can really show you his abilities, both excellent (swimming & his sense of humor) and not-so-excellent (lack of communication, and inappropriate noise levels). Watching the video is different than the living of it. Different scary. Different real. Or surreal.
How do I explain what I mean?
He’s ten years old. He’s my baby. Too soon to be an adult and, watching that video, I became afraid of all that means and how soon it is coming. In fact it’s speeding up, as time does when we age somehow, and if I’m not careful I will worry in a million ways which will only waste time.
Operating under the assumption that I’m not involved, would I whip out my camera to film him aggressing and post it here? I want to say yes – but I don’t know.
Anyhow, I found older snippet-videos, most of him swimming last year. Here are two:
In this first video we see I am trying to take a photo of Jonah (who very accommodatingly smiled wide for the camera) and then realizing – duh – I have the setting on video.
In this second one you can hear him say “all ny-uh” – which used to be his way to say “all done.” Now he just says “all done.” He has come a long way at Anderson. It happens so quickly, all of this everything. Sometimes I feel as if I’m in slow motion, watching it speed past me.
For once this writer doesn’t know what to say or how to say it.
(Like that hard as hell Spanish course I’m doing on Rosetta Stone. They make you say words when you don’t even know what they mean or how to use them. I say the words over and over and over sometimes before they let me go on. Never do you know the meaning of a word. It’s all pictures, and repetition, letting you in on the secret of Spanish 0h so frustratingly slowly.
Then you have to spell words correctly, accents and all with this keyboard tool they give you. Then you have to hear the differences between ridiculously similar ways to pronounce two completely different words, like the words for baby and drink. I have to admit, in English there are single words that mean different things. Rose. Lash. Stream.
Those are just off the top of my head. Does Spanish also have this? Am I even capable of learning it? I forget all the words. I don’t understand why it is “Tengo frio” (sorry, I don’t have my accents handy) and yet “Estoy hambre.” If I’m even remembering that right. One means I am cold and one means I am hungry, right? Or no? When do you use tengo and when do you use estoy? And why?)
End of rant about learning Spanish. But if you know the answers feel free to chime in. Por favor!
In exactly one month I will no longer be the answer to the universe. (Unless I die before that, in which case I will always be the answer to the universe).
We’re coming up on the first anniversary of Jonah’s going to Anderson.
I miss him a lot tonight.