Something you have put together
Although I'm not a worshiper of petroleum, the great dinosaur legacy -
burned out, mushed up, between layers, underground - the modern letting
of ancient blood, earth's core, black magma; there is a certain delight
in the stacks of brightly colored plastic blocks that lay strewn around
my house like a story. With each new set, a vision, a promise. My son
starts by following the directions. At eight he is a professional.
Although an accomplished reader, they require no words. Spacial
intelligence, yes. Linguistic, no. For me, the tiny drawings, arrows
and sequential steps brings about a desire to type, or clean or cook.
For him, a world opens up. As he stacks the tiny pieces, one on top of
the other, they become bigger, constructed, recognizable, and he becomes
smaller, shrinking down until he is inside them.
Children, I'm
convinced, don't simply put Legos together, they inhabit the Lego world.
This becomes all the more apparent when the first mishap occurs. Inevitably, and usually within a matter of hours, or now that he is
older, days, a wing falls off, a base comes undone, some core component
of the imitated object disintegrates. And that is when the magic
begins. Legos, like life, follow their own patterns. Once the mastered object
is no longer what it was, he is free to take it apart, mix it up with
the other long ago wrecked creations, and create something entirely new.
In
my house there are Legos strewn about, little people with mismatched
heads hanging from petroleum based chains. Weapons made from what were
once headlights; jails and gardens and improbable wars between strange
counterparts. I am often asked to guess, "Which one is the good guy,
Mama? Who do you think is the bad guy?" and it's never as clear as one
might think. My son creates elaborate worlds, sounds and scenes, all of
which I'm convinced he is a part, shrunken down to their size, inside
the tiny compartments, walking under the layered alien gardens of
plastic.
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