It was a beautiful Spring-like day. Cold, but sparkling. Outside on the heath, I could see energetic fathers positioning the goalposts and jumping up and down like eager subs. Their kids, younger than mine, were getting kitted out, ready for a morning’s game of football, little poster children for a healthy, active life. Mine were slumped in their pyjamas, eyes glazed, fingering their devices. It wouldn’t do. I kicked them out of the house, into the alarmingly cold air. They scowled.
Things got better when we found the stick in Greenwich park. It was the perfect stick. Thick, but not too thick, long, smooth, free from lateral sprigs or fibrous bits. It was straight and true as a light saber. Too good, in retrospect. For a few fleeting minutes, my two sons frolicked with the stick, enjoying the thrill of the find. And then the rancour set in. The youngest had found it and laid claim. Finders keepers. But the oldest wanted it just as much. A second stick would need to be found, every bit as perfect as this one. It soon became clear that there would be no second stick. And so the charade began. I needed a rationale to placate the youngest, in anticipation of the Darwinian struggle that was about to ensue. It was too big for him, I said. Better suited to the eldest. We would need to find a smaller, age appropriate stick. The older child immediately saw the wisdom in this.
“We’re looking for a stick that is as good as this but smaller because this one’s too big for you. OK Theo?”
We plodded around looking for the second stick. The blue sky, daffodils, and shimmering vista of the city at the foot of the hill, were lost on us. There would be no heart-lifting Spring like behaviour of the kind I fantasised about before frogmarching my boys to the park. No cavorting like carefree puppies. Instead, we spent the next ten minutes circling the perimeters of trees, our noses sweeping the ground like tracker dogs. We nearly found one. A decent stick, almost but not quite a contender. The older brother saw its merit. He picked it up, clipped off a couple of twiggy bits and made it good. Or quite good.
“Look Theo. This is a really good stick”.
“It’s curved”.
“It’s not curved”.
“I hate it”.
I intervened.
“I’m going to fling the stick over the fence”.
“NOOOOOO!!!” Both children cried out in unison, allies against a common enemy.
A resolution, of sorts.
Ariadne Birnberg 