Assignment Earth

Sword and Shield

President’s Day.  It was a blessed holiday and respit from school and work.  I didn’t look at this holiday as I did most of the holidays we get.   Which are usually state or national holidays and therefore keep me from doing any of the mundane duties I have no time for during the work/school week like going to the bank or whatever.  Even on a day off like this, such as it is, I tend to look at it with a shade of negativity and lack of gratitude.  For whatever reason, maybe consious, I wouldn’t approach it that way today.

As I was readying for my morning walk I heard my 5 year old creating and instructing my 3 year old in a new game. This game was called “Sword and Shield.” I noted proudly to myself that “Shield” was a patriotice comic book character along the lines of Jack Kirby’s Captain America, created back in the ’40’s even if he didn’t know that.

My five year old was “Sword”. My 3 year old, he instructed, was “Shield”. They each had a plastic toy that represented their namesake. My oldest told the little brother he was to hold his plastic shield and “throw it at bad guys” when they found them. Big brother would “fight them with his sword”. Little brother’s other duties were to find bad guys and point them out when they were spotted. A scout as it were. It was implied he was to do it loudly and with great gusto. Traits he was very good at when the spirit so moved. He was a contributor in building excitement and energy to the make believe adventure. That makes sense in any relationship/venture.

In his defense it takes time to internalize the made up rules of the game and the youngest was not as quick at mustering up the necessary false enthusiasm or adrenaline to get the game going. A true actor/performer learns to harness this and is able to call on this when needed. He’ll learn. “Shield” wasn’t quite as quick at doing his part so “Sword” renamed him Fred. That somehow got the proper motivation for the scene and they ran down the hall looking for bad guys. Fred yelled out, (to the creator of this game’s immense satisfaction), “There’s the bad guys!!” I could almost see the comic book writing and speech ballons above their heads. ‘Fred/Shield’ was doing his part and ‘Sword’ was coming up with new minutae and permutations to the game as they went along. He was working on the fly and even surprising himself.

What a leader my big boy was being…and trying to be. What a big brother. How creative. How bossy. How protective and inventive. How full of –‘it’. How so….like me.

I remembered the desperate creativity and spontaneity of coming up with rules and structure, in a mostly unstructured day and environment, on the spur of the moment as a kid,…..as the rest of the neighborhood impatientently, and skeptically waited on you. I was getting a self taught crash course on extemperaneous delivery, and developing into a pretty good one, as a kid. I was very pleased to see my boy had the same qualities and had apparently, I think instinctively, recognized them as a discipline to practice.

He, if he hadn’t already, would recognize it as a great commodity later also.