My daughter has an elaborate fantasy life, and she has minimal interest in the actual, tangible world. She writes lengthy ballads about personal crises and personal growth. But she cannot be bothered to hold a can of seltzer--the seltzer immediately slips from her hands and spills all over the floor. Over and over again.
I increasingly feel like I'm watching an X-ray image of myself--and I even have memories of obtuse adults scolding me about spilled liquids. (These are memories from my childhood.) I'm *now* in the role of the obtuse adult.
The other side of Susie's personality is a tendency toward harsh self-criticism. What happens is that she cannot tolerate constructive criticism from another person--because she feels fragile and she needs to believe she has a continuous stream of every adult's unstinting understanding and approval. I see this so clearly.
Yesterday, we watched the "new" version of "Moana." It's not as bad as the reviews. But my daughter grew bored. "Let me know when the granny is dead," she said, and she went in search of a Halloween Oreo. The crumbs flew everywhere.... "I had a dream about Te Ka," said Susie. "She was there, but she wasn't too scary. And we played." Then my daughter and I argued about the ending. Susie--correctly sensing that the brief coda would be eminently skippable--suggested that we could hit "pause" right after the arrival of Te Fiti.
"You don't have to watch," I said. "You're free to run around."
And Susie rolled her eyes.
The day came to a close.
Comments
Post a Comment