To hear the related 5-minute audio file that I uploaded today as my Morning Journal flash briefing for Alexa devices, please click on the play button:
Escape Velocity
Today I am floating in the space between generations.
Darlene and I have been staying with our grandsons Jake, 11, and Ryan, 9, for just shy of a week. My daughter Roo and her husband Mike return tomorrow evening.
It doesn’t feel entirely like babysitting, although only two of us can drive, and the big decisions get made by the elders. It’s more like we’re stranded on an island with beings from another continent. They speak our language, but what they say is often surprising.
Yesterday I found a place in Waltham called Escapology. We booked a room named “Scooby-Doo and the Spooky Castle Adventure.” A clock on the wall ticked down an hour of time as we followed clues and unlocked secret rooms, trying to solve a murder.
Although we failed to identify the culprit, it was a riot working together, each of us figuring out a different piece of the puzzle.
We didn’t break anything. Ryan mistakenly unscrewed one of smelling-salt containers, but none got spilled on the floor.
After lunch at Panera, I took the boys to Barnes & Noble while Darlene charged Pebbles at a Tesla Supercharger. I offered to buy Ryan and Jake a total of two books. They each found a second one and said they would pay me back, which they did—in cash.
This morning I recorded the Morning Journal with Ryan in a big tent on the third floor of their house. It’s been there since his 9th birthday in January, when Roo had the genius idea of setting it up for his sleepover party. “My room was getting kind of boring,” he explained.
We talked about this and that for five minutes. He loved watching the red waveform on my iPhone’s Voice Memos app as we spoke.
“Grampa, do you know there are tiny golf-ball people in mini-golf?”
I have become used to quick changes of topic this week, so I was ready to receive.
“They’re called Lili-putt-ians.”
Got it.
“And the tiny pencils at mini-golf weren’t originally used as tiny pencils…”
Ready again.
“They were actually spears used in the Lili-putt-ian War.”
Jake and Ryan are at school now. We are back in Grownup World, confirming itineraries for travel this summer and checking the weather to see if there will be Little League practice this evening.
My alleged comfort zone is a life on my own terms, honed after decades, with the number of surprises minimized by habits and strong preferences.
This week I have reached escape velocity and enjoyed exploring the space between my world and the world of two boys who will be my age in the years 2091 and 2093, respectively.
Imagine that.
