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One cool, autumn
evening found us around the dinner table with my oldest son eager to
illustrate an experiment he learned at school earlier that day. This was
where we always sit down together and share our days' events. If the
boys had late basketball practice, we waited until they were home to
eat. As they grew and became more involved in school activities, we
sometimes caught up on two days of frenzy and excitement, but we did get
caught up. This bridged our differences as we learned tolerance and
interest in each other's walks of life.
"Pass the potatoes,
please." My youngest said.
"Mom, take the dish.
Let's change directions of passing the food tonight." My oldest said
with a smile that covered his face. He was sitting at the end of the
table, not his usual place on the side seated across from me.
I noticed he wanted to
be the last one to touch the bowls of food we passed around to each
other all night. He placed the bowl of potatoes next to my ice-tea
glass but it really wasn't in my way. I ignored his smirk.
"We did an experiment
on space in class today." He announced after placing the green beans on
the other side of my glass of iced tea.
"Did you discuss the
planets and stars in the sky? That's space up there, I believe it is
outer space." I said with glee as I noticed the breadbasket was now in
front of my tea.
"No, we learned a new
concept today. Hold out your hand. Try to stretch your fingers as far
apart as you can get them." We all followed his lead.
"OK."
"That's space, that's
the space of your hands. You can make the interval between your fingers
wide, and then you can narrow it by pulling them close together." He was
feeling a bit superior by this time.
"Cool." My youngest
yelled with the same smirk on his face as his brother had at the
beginning of this conversation.
We discussed in great
lengths the parking spaces for our cars, the amount of room left when
the cars were finally inside the garage, and how much space it took to
open the car door and get out of it. He went into detail about the space
between each word when we write letters and the pauses during the
transmission of a telegraph message.
This was intense. I
thought to myself, what a day, what a teacher, teaching a new concept of
space. I knew all this. I looked around and noticed everybody was
laughing. This occasion was giving them an opportunity to really enjoy a
secret everyone was in on but me.
"Mom, look."
"Where?"
"Look down."
I studied the carpet
on the floor. By this time the room was in a roar, and my face began to
redden. I could feel the flush.
"Mom, look at your
plate."
When I looked, every
bowl of food, the salt and pepper shaker, the breadbasket, everything on
the table-even their ice tea glasses was surrounding my place setting.
It looked like the battle of the century, and I was alone facing the
century.
"We have invaded your
personal space, and you didn't even notice. You are either highly
contented in your life or totally unaware of what goes on around you."
"That's what you
learned in school today? What is your teacher's name?" I must have been
a bit loud for we finished dinner in silence. But the next night, I
passed the food last. It became a game, a game of a personal space
invasion.
C 2006 Carol Dee Meeks |
