While I was standing by one of the open reservoirs, peering into the viridian water, wondering how well the filtering system screens out duck shit and tennis balls, I heard a voice berating someone for singing along to a Lionel Richie song. While I'm not a big Lionel Richie fan, I still am in favor of allowing a person to sing along to whatever music he or she enjoys. In this case, the singer was a boy, maybe ten or twelve, not yet pubescent, a bit on the pudgy side, with headphones and glasses. He and about six other boys were sitting on the warm pavement, resting beside their skateboards.The berater of the singer was much older, a weathered, blonde man wearing a weird skateboarder wetsuit type outfit. He stood over the group, and made fun of the singing kid. And he just wouldn't quit. He called the kid a girl. (Horrors, god forbid anyone should be called a girl.) He said, “That song was shit the first time around!” The other kids laughed. The singer was obviously mortified, humiliated by the group leader in front of his peers.
I stood nearby, stretching my legs and glaring at the blonde man, wishing I could say something to him that would make him shut up, make him apologize to the group for being such a thoughtless jerk, but realizing that the boy whose creative self-expression I was wanting to support would not thank me, a pasty-legged middle-aged female, for intervening on his behalf in front of his crew. So I just walked away in disgust.
The incident got me thinking about turning points in the lives of young people, and how a few misplaced words can derail dreams. I can remember moments in my life when something someone said changed my trajectory—and not for the better. For example, I remember when my father told me, “Learn how to type so you'll have something to fall back on.” I was in my late teens, I think, still believing I could be an artist, still thinking the world was a friendly place for creative people. I didn't believe I would need a skill like typing. I rebelled. I didn't take typing in high school, but his words planted a message in my mind: Your art will not support you. Be safe, learn another skill. Why couldn't he have suggested welding, or horse-breeding, or something else outside the proscribed world of women? Sadly, I did eventually learn how to type, a skill which led to my impressment into the bitter estrogen-clogged army of administrative assistants, also known as secretaries.
Another crossroads moment came in college. It was 1975. One of my fellow painters told me painting was dead. It was all about conceptual art now, didn't I know, hadn't I heard? The tired world of physical canvases covered with paint was so pedestrian, so the opposite of avante garde. I was a very young 19. What did I know? Not myself, that's for sure. When I heard painting was a dead art form, did I think, hey, artists have been painting since the beginning of time, no way are they going to stop now? No. I had the same reaction I had when I was ten and my friends told me Mike Nesmith was the ugly Monkee. I tore all his pictures off my wall and cried my eyes out. When I heard painting was dead, I switched my major from painting to graphic design, and the rest, as they say, is the sad sordid history of my miserable art career.
I'm not blaming my dad. I'm not blaming my fellow classmate. I'm just pointing out that there are crossroads moments in the lives of young people, moments that offer them a choice, and if they are at all unsure about who they are, the words people toss out so carelessly can have a lasting impact. These people and their thoughtless words can change lives, and not always for the better.
So the next time you have a chance to tell a kid something, even if you think she isn't listening, please be careful what you say.
