Into the wild

Egon is going camping for his 16th birthday anniversary celebration.

I wonder aloud the sensibleness of sending eight 16-year-olds into the woods with only two 18-year-olds as oversight (Shara & Aubrey).

“Six,” says Egon.

“Oh, who are you inviting?” I ask.

“Vaclav, Asher, Oscar, Paige, Jack.”

Paige’s father is notoriously Victorian in his attitude toward his daughters and boys.  Paige slept over after prom, but only because she was technically spending the night with Shara.

I mention to Egon that perhaps Paige’s father would not be keen on allowing her to camp out with a bunch of teenage boys.

“But Paige has to come – she’s bringing the machetes!”

Oh yeah, this is gonna go great.

these people, these so important people

There are these people.

There are these people at critical moments in time in your personal journey that influence you, shape you, help you form yourself.  They may be positive influences, they may provide challenges that, by working through, build your character.  It may be that their real impact is not dealt until years later, with reflection and internalization.

It may be that your intersection with them was only fleeting in the scope of life, but powerful.  Or it may be that their presence and effect is constant and ongoing.

How do I characterize these people?  In my head and heart I call them my dearest, bestest friends – though in day to day life I may never talk with them, or in the span of decades see them only rarely.

That critical moment when you are neck deep in personal growth, with its two steps forward, five steps back, with a sideways lurch off the path followed by a rapid ascent, and you are surrounded constantly by these people, these oh-so-important people, every waking minute.  When their impact is imprinted in your gray matter in a way that makes them part of you indelibly.

Even after lives move us apart and keep us “too busy” to stay in touch, reverberations of our youthful bonds still act on our psyches.

I miss them fiercely, love them dearly and am forever indebted to them for their impact on me.  I regret the choices that took me away from them, and the time that has gone by since we were enmeshed in each other’s every day existences.

I miss dancing all night in bare feet on a floor covered in beer and cigarette butts, taking breaks to talk about psychology or art, and knowing I was surrounded and supported by a web of youthful love and optimism.

Mr. Suave

Egon charms people.  All of them.  The nutritionist.  His (poor, beleaguered) teachers.  Shara.  Us.  He is funny and thoughtful and empathetic.

And sometimes he quivers with moral outrage.

I was forwarded a job posting for “Youth Tobacco Compliance Inspectors”  These are the 15-17 year old teens who go into convenience stores and try to buy cigarettes. I thought maybe this would appeal to Egon’s sense of adventure and role-playing (this is the kid who dresses as Walter White and drops off paper bags on friends’ porches).  So I brought home the flyer.

Egon was disgusted and appalled.  “That is a TERRIBLE job.  That is a bad job!  Everyone would hate me!” he threw back as he marched upstairs.  Then he paused half-way up the flight, and added over his shoulder, “That would really mess with people’s trust issues.”

Later, eating dinner, he dribbled half of a mouthful back into his bowl.  In response to our astonished expressions, he said, “Something healthy got in my mouth by accident.”