My Earliest Memories, Part 3:

It was back when we lived in the trailer

In the woods

(our second home)

Mom worked

Dad stayed with us

I remember him asking me if I had a wet diaper

If he needed to change it

I nodded my head:

Yes

But he didn’t change it, he just kept working,

He was hunched over Something Important

So I did not want to interrupt

Whatever it was, it mattered a lot

So I watched his back

Until the diaper burst

Crisis!

Out spilled these terrible little beads of absorbent jelly

All yellow and saturated with pee

I touched one, it was like a bubble that wouldn’t pop.

I think that was the first time I felt ashamed

I started crying and dad spun around to see what the matter was

He was so apologetic.

He asked why I never told him that I needed a fresh diaper

Between my tears, I told him I did! I told him I’d been nodding my head

He explained that nobody could hear a head nodding,

And if his back was turned he’d have no way of seeing

And next time I’d have to speak

I was so confused

I felt betrayed

My mom had always told me that grownups had eyes on the backs of their heads,

And that was how they knew if little kids were misbehaving

But dad couldn’t see me nodding?

I asked to take a closer look at the back of his head and I began to see the wisdom of his advice:

Because grownups didn’t have eyes back there

They just had sweat and hair

And I learned two things: my dad was wise

And my mom had lied

I watched him the next day, to see what else I could learn.

He peeled an orange and I marveled to see such power

He shared some with me, and I quietly wondered if someday I’d grow big enough to peel an orange all by myself

And to share it with someone else

Then I watched him floss his teeth before bedtime

I wanted to floss, to be cool like him

But I didn’t have any,

So I found a little string and plucked it from my pillowcase

I practiced flossing

I felt so grownup, until the fibers frayed between my little teeth

The string broke

And then I switched to something smoother: a hair, plucked from my own head

This might have been a naive child trying to imitate what he did not understand

But I like to think:

This was my spiritual instinct shining through.

Plucking a hair, was my first unconscious protest against a crime I lacked the words to condemn

I was too young to know better

But my body was acting

On the direction

Of some innate knowledge from deep within my soul:

Nobody should ever have to wear a bowl cut