Silly questions

I am filling out forms for summer camp, and the forms are particularly extensive for Camp Kalsman, the Jewish overnight camp Jordan will go to for the first time this summer. Some of the questions on the form are to be answered by the camper. Jordan has been to this camp for a day trip, and he has been on the receiving end of a lot of camp promotion through religious school.

R: Hey Jordan, I am filling out forms for camp, and they want to know what you are especially looking forward to. Any thoughts?
J: I really want to play on those play structures that they have. I am looking forward to a campfire, and canoeing, and being in a community. And the Jewish stuff. And the food. I think it's okay to say the food, right?
R: Sure. "Being in a community," wow, that is a very grownup thing to say.
J: So? I am looking forward to that.
R: Okay, I just mean that other kids might say "I want to be with my friends" or put it some other way. But that's great. They also want to know if there is anything you want to get out of camp.
J: Get out of?
R: Like, do you want to learn something, or come home different from when you left. Some people might say I want to make five new friends, or I want to learn to shoot a bow and arrow, or some other thing.
J: I think I am pretty good just as I am.
R: Then last they want to know if there is anything you want them to know about you.
J: I'm a pretty nice guy? These seem like kind of silly questions.
R: Some people might say, I hate to be tickled so never tickle me.
J: I actually kind of like being tickled. But you don't have to tell them that.
R: Some people might say, I love to be tickled, please tickle me all the time.
J: No, definitely don't say that.

This conversation was very amusing to me. Jordan is a pleaser; he likes to know the right answer, and give people answers that will make them happy, and clearly he felt that he knew the right answers to the first question. But the second two questions just seemed strange and unanswerable to him. He is not a goal-oriented kid; he doesn't decide to do something for some larger purpose; he just does it because it's fun, or because it's what we do. And what would anyone need to know about him? In his eyes, he's just a normal get-along guy, nothing anyone would need to adjust to or plan for. I don't think he even knows what that would mean. We do ask funny questions sometimes, we adults.

Outside and inside

In the car on the way home from grocery shopping.

Aaron: Mommy I think that I am what you might call sensitive.
Rachel: What do you mean by that?
Aaron: Because I ran and fell down and it didn't even hurt very much, but I cried.
Rachel: Yes. Maybe you feel things more, and that is called being sensitive. Or maybe, and this is what I think, maybe you show your feelings more. Your feelings are on the outside.
Jordan: I think that is right. What Aaron is feeling just comes right out.
Rachel: Jordan, I think you are not the same way.
Jordan: Yes. I keep my feelings more inside. I know how to make a bubble around bad feelings and then sometimes I can make the bubble go away. But you can't do that too much. There was a guy in a book who did that so much that he got a bad rash on his leg and it wouldn't go away until he let his feelings out.
Aaron: I always let my feelings out. So that would not happen to me.
Jordan: Also everyone can see your feelings, so they can help you. That is good. You show them you are sad and then they can maybe help you feel better.
Aaron: Also it's quick.
Rachel: There are good things about each of your ways. Jordan, I think what you are doing sometimes when you are quiet about your feelings is that you are cheering yourself up. You know how to help your own bad feelings go away.
Jordan: I think sometimes I don't know what I'm feeling.
Rachel: I totally get that.

Mini golf and goodbye

On our last day in Hawaii, we said our goodbyes to the marvelous house we stayed in... Here are our little surfer dudes on the lanai.

We took a last look at Hanalei Bay.

We also did a little shopping. Jordan picked out an extremely colorful shirt for himself; I don't have a picture of him in it but it is the same fabric as these dressing-room curtains. He loves bright colors and shrieked with delight when he saw himself in the mirror.

And, last but decidedly not least, we played a round of miniature golf! This golf course is also a gorgeous botanical garden, with interpretive signs all along explaining the cultural history of Hawaii. It's very well done.

Two more photos that don't have major narratives to accompany them: The boys in front of the Kilauea Fish Market, which tied with the Hanalei Dolphin for my favorite restaurant.

And the photo they took of us at the Smith Family Luau, another quite fun experience, touristy as all heck but a great time. Delicious food and wonderful entertainment, a whole cultural history of the islands through dance. And yes, many of the ladies were actually wearing those silly coconut bras. 

Anini Beach

(We have been home for a week, but I still have photos to share.) On our last day in Hawaii, we went to Anini Beach, one of the lovely keiki beaches on the north shore. The boys wanted to do some more snorkeling, this time with Aunt Deena; I wanted to do some more sitting in the shade reading a book. We were all satisfied.

Deena and Jordan stayed in one spot for quite a while laughing hysterically and horsing around in the current. We found out later that actually, the current was frighteningly strong, and they were really having trouble getting out of there. They kept a good attitude and didn't panic and eventually managed to swim like the dickens to a calm spot. But, swimmers beware: even at gentle beaches there are dangerous pockets.

Aaron collected coral. However, he respected the rule that one may not remove anything like that from the Hawaiian islands, at risk of being cursed by Pele, the Hawaiian volcano goddess. 

We enjoyed watching this dog and his human do a little surf-sailing or whatever this is called. Did the Polynesians bring dogs on their outrigger canoes?

Say what?

This morning I said to Aaron, “It’s our last day in Hawaii,” and he said, “That’s okay – because today I’m gonna jerk off!” Um, what? It took me a couple beats to realize that what he had actually said was “Because today is miniature golf!” Now I can’t stop thinking that we’re headed to the mini jerk-off course. But at least there is no need to explain to him what that would mean.

Kauai: Ke'e

We have been to Ke'e Beach twice, because it is lovely, with shade, and a safe and fun lagoon protected by a coral reef. The boys snorkeled both here and at Poipu. The snorkeling on Kauai is not super beautiful; there are some entertaining fish, but the coral itself is muddy-colored, not the rainbow beauty I remember from when I was last here (thirty-some years ago). Apparently Kauai has never been the place for beautiful coral; my memory must be of snorkeling on the Big Island. I did a little snorkeling at Poipu, but at Ke'e, I got in some much-needed quiet time on a shady beach with a book. 

Ke'e is at the edge of the Na Pali Coast, the undeveloped wilderness of Kauai, and has trails leading into the tropical rainforest. The trails were too steep and rocky and muddy for most of us to get very far, but Dale and Jordan got high enough to take some pictures.

Kauai: Poipu

On the second day of rain in Hanalei, we packed up and drove on the rode circling the island until we found sunshine. We had to go all the way to Poipu, on the south side, but it's a small island so that was only a little over an hour. It was well worth it. Beach, sand, boogie boards, snorkeling, picnic: a total Hawaii day.

A sea turtle was on the sand, roped off so that we tourists wouldn't trip over it.

A monk seal was lounging on the rocks.

Shave ice was the perfect conclusion to the day. The boys are now total fans of sarongs: towel, skirt, blanket, pillow, hood, whatever you need all in one soft piece of brightly colored fabric.

The only downside was that we underestimated the sun. Dad and Aaron were well protected, but Dale, Jordan, and I were not sunscreened enough, and spent a lot of time in the water, and after four hours of midday Hawaiian rays, were totally scorched. Jordan had it the worst and had to spend the evening draped with cold wet towels. Poor guy. I was hoping the experience would make him less resistant to applying sunscreen, but no: he still fights it every step of the way. Sigh.

Kauai: Hanalei

This year my aunt Jes, who is turning 70, declared that she wanted to spend her birthday at her favorite location on the planet – Hanalei Bay, on the north shore of Kauai – and said if anyone would like to join her she'd love to have us. Great idea for a family vacation, no? We rented a fantastic house in the little town of Hanalei, and are here for a week. It's pretty blissful.

The house is about a block from the beach. The closest beach is too rugged for swimming in but is still fun to have nearby. The boys are incredibly thrilled by beaches. They just love sand, love love love it, and love to dash in and out of the waves.

There are countless warnings about rip tides on Hanalei Bay. We tried to convey to the boys that the ocean is not kidding, but I think it's hard for them to imagine. Perhaps a little real-life experience will be a better teacher: Aaron was horsing around along a steep stretch of beach, not watching the ocean, and before he or we knew what hit him, he was being rolled in the surf like a little beach log. Dale ran and grabbed his flailing arm. He was sand-coated and terrified. We were all a little terrified, but he is fine, and hopefully the lesson is learned. 

As you can see, the weather the first day we were here was rather Pacific Northwest-y. Okay, it was warmer than home, but it rained all day. We made the best of it by heading to the farmer's market for tropical fruit. 

The bananas are a local specialty called apple-bananas, but they taste pretty much like regular bananas to me. The prickly red things are rambutans and the purple thing is a mangosteen, both of which Dale and I remember very fondly from southeast Asia. There are also papayas, and an eggfruit, which is new to me and delicious, tasting like a very sweet cooked sweet potato.

One of the things about Kauai is that it is replete with feral chickens, like so many pigeons. They are pretty, and it's funny to see chickens strutting around everywhere you go, but they are loud, especially in the mornings. Here is one of the local Foghorn Leghorns strutting his stuff.

The chickens were brought over by the ancient Polynesians when they arrived on Hawaii. They are only on Kauai, because on all the other islands sugar cane growers imported mongooses, hoping they would control the rats. Unfortunately mongooses are diurnal and rats are nocturnal, so the rat problem went unabated, and the mongooses ate an enormous number of birds. These days Hawaii is more careful about non-native species.

Musical attention

I spent an hour watching Jordan's choir rehearse yesterday; it's easy to slip in the back. When I got there they were discussing a situation the choir director (Ben) had observed, which is that when they practice together with the Intermediate Choir (one level below them), they get bored and don't sing well. Naturally, the music they sing together is at the lower level, since it has to be accessible to the other choir, so there is a temptation to be bored. But still, even with easy songs there is the opportunity to make beautiful music. Ben said that he expected them to show leadership in this situation, and invited conversation about how they might improve things. They agreed that it was a problem, and that it was their responsibility to make it better, and were quite engaged in proposing solutions. One suggestion was for intermediate choir to learn the songs more before the combined rehearsal, so that it's less repetitive for the advanced choir. Another suggestion was that they should mix in with the intermediate choir, instead of being all together in the back. "If we had an intermediate guy on each side we could help them out and that would remind me to show leadership," said one boy. Ben liked these ideas and plans to implement them.

A different problem one boy voiced was that too much of the music is religious. On that one, Ben basically said tough luck; the choral music literature is overwhelmingly religious, and while they do what they can do balance it, it's just the way it is.

They went on to practice a song for which they have mastered the pitches and rhythm and words, and are working on making it more musically expressive. (Here's James Taylor singing it.) Ben showed them that currently they are singing it correctly, but a little robotically, and that it's boring that way. He worked with them on swells and ebbs on the long slow notes. Then, on the line, "Oh love is handsome, and love is fine; the sweetest flower when it is new," he asked them: What is the most important word in this line? There were various proposals. Ben voted for "handsome": he said, the line is about how great the love is, so that is probably the most important word, but he would go for "sweetest flower" almost as much. Later in the song, the singer leans his back against an oak, and is surprised when it sways. Ben quizzed the boys about the meaning of this; he got them to recognize that an oak should be sturdy, like the singer thought his love would be, and it turns out to be false and fading. Now remember, he's talking to boys aged 8-11; this is not really an area of their life experience! Once he got some giggles, but when he inquired, "Can we be mature about this?" they instantly zipped it. He said, "A singer is an actor. You are being a character, and that will inform your music." They sang it again, and it was far better this time.

On the way home, Jordan and I talked about the things he is learning in choir. One thing he volunteered was, "Mommy I can really tell when I go on autopilot. I can feel it. And it's really hard to get out of autopilot even though I am trying to. I just keep getting back into it. It's a lot of work to concentrate my attention." How awesome is that, that he knows what it feels like to have slipped out of engaging with his current task, and can practice getting back into the moment? Especially for a kid with attention issues.

Music education

I have groused about Jordan's schoolwork before, but I tell you what, the musical education he is getting is extraordinary. He is getting this education through the Northwest Boychoir and through his piano lessons, which make a particularly excellent combination since his piano teacher is also his choir director.

The Boychoir teaches music in terms of solfege, which is the way Julie Andrews teaches the von Trapp children in The Sound of Music. In this system, you first sing a song in terms of the do-re-mi syllables. The first two lines of "Happy Birthday," for example, would be sung as "sol sol la sol do ti, sol sol la sol re do." Then, once you are good at singing a tune on solfege, you add the words. This is powerful because you start to internalize the intervals between notes, which, for a singer, are more important than the notes themselves. Once you learn what "do re mi" or "sol do ti" sounds like, you can sing those combinations in other contexts, in songs you don't know already. Next, you learn that the solfege syllables match particular notes in sheet music. At first, someone tells you the base note (the "do"), and from there you figure out the rest: the one up from that (in that scale) is the re, then the mi, etc. Now you are starting to be able to use the solfege to analyze written music. Eventually you learn how to identify the "do" from the key signature, and what to call notes that are not in that key, and then you are becoming quite musically literate.

Jordan is outstandingly good at this. He is especially good at translating songs into solfege. He is so good at this that he can sit in the back of the car listening to a pop song, and sing the correct solfege syllables along with the pop song. This is quite a thing in itself: it's a way of knowing the structure of a song, what intervals it is composed of. But not only that: Because he is also learning piano, including scales, he can then walk from the car straight into the house and over to the piano, and play what he was just hearing. Because any scale is the do-re-mi. And he can play it in any key you want. Knocks me out every time. This is a learned skill, obviously, but also, Jordan has an amazing ear and a practically photographic (?) memory for music. Today I played him Bach's Minuet in G two times, and he reproduced the right hand with essentially no errors. He just sat down and played it. He has heard it before, but never tried to play it before.

Boychoir has levels, and Jordan has moved up quickly. He spent the required four months in the Prep Class, and then one quick year at the Intermediate level, and has now tested into the Advanced Choir, one level below the top. The test was delightful. Here is the first page that they were supposed to analyze, as it was handed to the boys on test day:

This was a joke! The image is good enough to zoom in on and it's hilarious... but the best part, to me, was watching Jordan try to share the joke with various friends of his, who just didn't find it all that funny because they don't read music. Woohoo! Jordan has become a music nerd! And actually I am serious in my cheering, because to be a nerd is to have a sense of identity around an activity, and I love that music is becoming this for him.

The real test included writing in the solfege and rhythm (using a numbering system) for a few lines of music, and doing rhythm and solfege "dictation" - listening to something being played, and writing down the rhythm or the solfege of what you heard. For example, the teacher would play two notes on the piano, and assuming that the first note was the do, you would write what the second note was (sol, fa, or whatever). Sometimes it was three notes, and weird combinations, like "do me te," in which "me" is a half-step down from mi, and "te" is a half-step down from ti. Yowza. Jordan totally nailed this. Now, in Advanced Choir, he is singing more difficult music, and there is more attention to his individual development as a musician. He will probably be in Advanced Choir for a year and then move up to Performing Choir at maybe age 11, giving him a couple of years to sing at a professional level (including performances with Seattle Symphony, recording sessions, and tours) before his voice changes. After that, he wants to be in the high school rock singers' group, which would be awesome.

There are three Boychoir music directors and they are all incredibly good, but Jordan has a special relationship with Ben. They hit it off from the start. Jordan says, "Ben really gets me," and I think that is so true: he sees what Jordan is good at, and sees what he is ready to learn, and has the skill to translate that into activities that advance him. Jordan says that both piano and Boychoir are "hard work, but encouraging," unlike school, which is more discouraging to him. I see this when I eavesdrop on rehearsals: Ben is very demanding, but his demands come from a place of knowing what the boys can do and wanting to see them reach their potential. I think that they feel that and are grateful to have their best selves seen and called forward. I am sure Jordan feels that way. We are so grateful to have people like this in Jordan's life.

We expect Aaron to enjoy music just as much as Jordan does; he also has a great ear and has always loved to sing. He will audition for the Boychoir in the spring.