Just break the plate

I was about three, and I broke a plate. It wasn’t accidental; I did it on purpose.

I grew up in the eighties, where TV became the absent minded babysitter of the young, and I guess it still is, in a more small and compact way. On that great tube, they used to have a real tube back in the day, not this flat stuff around now; I saw many things, most of which I don’t remember. One thing must have played a bunch, because it got stuck in my head. The thought must have rattled around in my head for what seems like forever to a three-year-old, though I honestly have no clue how long it lay festering. What I know is that on a sunny day, I decided it was time to test my hypothesis. Clad in nothing but a diaper, I found the testing implement, a large claw hammer.

I need to take a break here, and explain, because people may not understand how a three-year-old could get his hands on a hammer. Sure, many factors come into play, but in the end it was just luck of the draw that I was born in an era where child locks were for the wealthy and my splendid memory. Of course, that significant information retention was the root cause of the endeavor to begin with, but I digress.

Hammer in hand, I needed the test subject. I must take some liberties here, because, while I can see how a toddler could get into a tote with tools, I am thoroughly baffled at how I got hold of a plate. We didn’t have a dishwasher, which means I got up on the counter, opened a cupboard, got a plate and got back down, or one was available to me, maybe after a meal. I got the plate, white with three blue rings, wrapping around the edges. Again, I must take a few liberties, because I can’t imagine that I went straight for the hammer to do this experiment. Only after seeing the commercials over and over did I even attempt my experiment. The ones showing dishes falling to the floor, still whole after the inevitable sudden stop, and that catchy slogan “Corell, they just don’t break”, made my mind wild with thoughts of how that could be. Maybe I dropped a plate a few times prior. When they didn’t break, I must have thought, the hammer, that’s the ultimate test.

A Plate in one hand hammer in the other, I opened the side door to the patio. All the while, the TV-minder, doing its best to mind such a determined child, played on. There, all alone, I made my experiment real. The hammer met the plate, blue rings shattered, and the actual adults came on the run to see what trouble their son had managed now. I looked up and said, “They do to break dad”. That's the moment, small, inconsequential, but high on the impact scale. Not for what happened, though that is important, but for what didn’t happen.

I think you’ll see better if I tell the alternate tale. The one where I shattered the plate, my parents came running, I told them how they do to break, and then, got the paddle, belt or other physical punishment. I stopped thinking and questioning things, forced to just fall in line and not get the paddle again. Content to trade my mind's potential for safety.

It’s a little thing, isn’t it always? Critical life paths, taken in the moment, unfurling the road ahead. They aren’t always even our actions that made the difference, or the choice if you will, but how others saw our actions and interacted with us. Like the plate, others can break us; sometimes we break ourselves. Looking back on how so many things could have gone wrong with my little experiment. Cuts, bruises, all manner of danger available to change this moment, but really it was how my parents handled it that sticks with me. I don’t know if they laughed, or got stern, but they didn’t hit me or punish me for being a curious boy. Think back now for just a moment, to the time when you stopped wondering, or when a punishment quelled the desire to explore some part of your world. How much different would things be for you if instead of being punished for thinking, the opportunity arose for teaching. The desire to learn and explore is but a seedling when we are young, easily uprooted; destroyed by scorn. To grow it anew in adulthood takes rearranging our entire view. Of course these small events won't stop the world from turning, but they grow wings, take flight, drawing us in; subtly shading a life. I think back on how my life has been shaded — with care, learning, and an endless supply of patience. I think of how, for me, it all hinges on this first fully formed memory. Small potatoes in the scheme of things. Now that I have decades to look back, with parental experiences of my own, I can’t help but marvel at how much those interactions that happen in the blink of an eye, the ones you have no time to prepare for, impact a young mind — for better or worse.

How did this small, moment change me? Well, it allowed me to fail; something I have done many times in spectacular fashion. This moment, and others like it, allowed me to see that it is okay to fail. That you don't always make the best choice, but from those missteps made in youth, a better, more clear, picture developed for me in adulthood. Without the opportunity to fail, knowing I was still safe, loved, and wouldn't be beaten or overly berated for it, I would never have been able to experience so much of life. From traveling the country, to spending time being homeless by choice. If I had the fear of failure mentality I never would have gotten to meet so many wonderful people. My mind would be closed off, narrowed by only what I could quickly succeed in.