Saved by Sidney

There is an old French film by Jean Renoir, “Boudu Saved From Drowning.”  Today, the film in my mind from the day at the playground with my daughter would be called “Mommy Saved From Drowning by Sidney.”  Sidney is about 2 years old, and I never saw her before today. I met her with my daughter at our little building-complex playground.  It has two regular swings, two baby swings, and a little slide too small for my daughter. The asphalt play area is filled with castaway tricycles and tiny bikes with training wheels. Only little kids go there–maybe 4 years is the average, but usually much younger. My daughter is 9 years old, going on 10.  But that’s where she likes to go with me.  That’s where we fit in, and don’t fit in. That’s why we met Sidney.

I always nearly drown at the playground, and there is not always some one, some thing, or some word, some inexplicably grace full, as in full-of-grace, moment to reach towards, like a rope thrown to me, like finally grasping the ladder rail, like a float thrown out at the last minute before going under.  It can be a moment of laughter or a kiss from my daughter; it can be a kind smile from a stranger, it can be an old happy memory towards which I train my mind.

There are so many conversations at the playground, from tiny kids to teens to moms and dads in their natural–and to me  incomprehensibly easy back and forth with their kids–with words of the children coming from mouths and brains fully formed and not injured, with a facility that so fascinates as to cause immense confusion, awe, and then the old envy, which turns to waves that threaten to drown me, at the ease in which they leave the mouths of any age of child.  From every corner of a the playground–the swings, the slides, the sandbox, the benches, and the asphalt area where the kids ride their bikes and scooters, is the sound of words and conversation. The words rise up, like a mist, like beads from the ocean that then become a storm, gather into one huge cloud above my daughter and me and then rain down in a deluge of phrases, sentences, pronouns, verbs, questions and demands. The strangest part of being the kind of mom I am is my now-almost superhuman hearing…like a dolphin or whale. No matter how slight the sound of another child, no matter how far away, I will hear it as it pours in the downpour of the miracle of speech onto my head.

All children at the playground, therefore, seem brilliant, despite this cacophony of articulation and lexicon as it is transmitted to me. They know how to speak, converse, interact, and play. It’s like landing on a foreign country, and we don’t know the language, the customs, or the cues. Of course, I do, and I did when I was my daughter’s age. So I become her emissary, her diplomat, her translator. And I also absorb all of the pain of rejection that she possibly does not know she is experiencing.

We’re used to playing alone. Children my daughter’s age don’t ask her to play. Some try to speak to her, some moms try to speak to her, because she looks so darling. Today at the park, as usual, a child next to her on the swing began to chat…silence from the other swing where my little girl is flying towards the heavens, always wanting to go higher, higher higher, faster, higher. Then the child looks at me and asks the same question. I take over the conversation, humming my little tune of the pretender, and keep pushing my daughter to the treetops where she loves to be.

When my daughter got down from the swing today, two little girls approached us — a cute dark-haired, blue eyed girl a few inches shorter than my daughter, and a much smaller, ash-blond, shy little cutie. The older girl looked up at me expectantly: I was sure she wanted the swing.

“Oh, we’re done, you can have the swing, we’re all finished.” There are always lines of kids for city swings. The dark-haired older girl didn’t move. I crouched down so I could look her in the eye because she obviously had something to say to me.  What she said was so surprising, I had to take in my breath.

“No, we don’t want the swings. We want to play with her.” She pointed at my daughter, who was half looking at the little girls, and half looking towards the future of her next move. “I’m Tess,” she said.  Tess, suddenly, became the cutest, smartest, and most compassionate child in the world to me.  I noticed she had a very cool little camera around her neck. Small, but a real camera. She probably wanted to be an ace reporter, and possibly was documenting life at the playground.  A child wanted to play with my child…how wonderful! And such a nice child. I could not imagine what would happen, and how this play would then unfold.

“Ella,” I said to my daughter, hugging her into the conversation and group. “Tess wants to play with you! Would you like to go on the swings or slide together?” Ella said nothing…at this point the quiet little sister looked more interested. “Ella!” Tessa said. “That’s my little sister’s name too!”

So we had a good start…only my Ella was still saying nothing and moving away a bit…and that is when I saw the look that always happens.  Tess immediately gleaned that all was not what she was used to, that she had stepped from her normal world to our foreign island, and she not only did not know the language, but…you know, there are no words for translating what she might have thought. Her initial look — so welcoming, so inviting and warm when she first pointed out my daughter as who she chose for play, with a broad and trusting smile — suddenly changed, as if all of the warmth of possible friendship and possible future shared moments of play just evaporated. Time and time again, I have seen this look when understanding hits: the face goes blank, there is a sudden lack of trust and openness, and the child backs away. Eyes look downward, lips purse, and the light in the eyes and smile has vanished. The child suddenly becomes painfully polite, silent, and remote.

“Thanks so much for asking!” I said, getting my daughter on her bike. We had our taste of heaven, the heaven of possible interaction and an afternoon of friendship, but it was gone just minutes after the offer. We rode on…with, little did I know, the smaller sister, Ella, chasing us from behind. She would not give up! She actually ran right into the bicycle when she overtook us, stepping right in front of the wheel. We stopped the bike just in time, and I got down to her level. “Oh Ella,” I said, “You dear little girl. You still want to play with us!” Still unsmiling as when we first met her, shy but determined and serious, she nodded her head. Yes, her head nodded, she wanted to play. Oh thank you, thank you, you nice little girl…next time, next time…as my daughter had already pedaled off.

We made our next stop, at another swing set, the one in our own apartment complex.  There, some little children were playing, mothers and fathers chatting, when my daughter got onto one of the swings. Push higher, higher, higher, higher…another swing, another tree top to scale, another heaven to reach.  A pretty little girl, who told me she was 3, was so verbal, so lithe..was very busy and didn’t seem to notice us. Her mother spoke  of her child’s many birthday parties attended and all of the things children that age do. She didn’t realize that we never get invited to birthday parties, unlike children who have up to twenty a year.  We don’t have one to go to this year; same as last year.

Suddenly, out of the benches comes a tiny little sprite, who could not have been more than 2 years old. Her mother and father and little children friends and mothers of these friends were calling her Sidney. Here came Sidney to lean against the pole of the swing set. She had wavy hair in a little blond bob, and was so tiny,  just a little thing, with a sweet little face and huge blue eyes.  She looked at my daughter on the swing, and then at me. She smiled and smiled and smiled. She radiated her eyes at me for the entire time I swung my daughter. She’d look down or at my daughter from time to time, but mostly she smiled unwaveringly at me. Oh, Sidney thought we were great, Sidney thought we were wonderful! There was no language needed, no invitation to play, nothing expected, and not one word shared. I smiled back at her as if my heart would break wide open. Oh, Sidney thought we were just fine, just perfect playmates, and not a thing was missing. Of the entire little playground full of kids and toys, it was us she wanted to be near. She looked at me for minutes going by, smiling shyly and never looking away, never stepping away, and not once opening her mouth. But she said more to me and my daughter than anyone else ever has.

Before I wrote this, I was making my bed. I started thinking about the look from Tess, and all the blood and radiant smile and welcoming companionship offered in her face just drain the minute she assessed my daughter. I sat down on the bed. It takes the legs off you; you can’t stand when you think of these things. It is hard enough to keep standing when you are there, but later when the film plays, you have to sit down when you’re alone. Then came sweet painful gratitude at the memory of the face of little 2 year- old Sidney, who smiled and smiled and stayed and stayed, and never abandoned us, who thought we were so wonderful, in all the meaning of that word: she was full of wonder for us. She did not know. What a perfect age. I want to be in a city, in a world, in a room forever, of Sidneys, and I never want to leave.  As all this was happening as I made my bed, I thought: I could let my legs give in, and give in and sit on the bed. Or, I could get up, and write, and let the memory of Sidney shine through. Maybe it’s writing that is my raft. Maybe it’s writing that is my rope.

by Nancy Angiello Copyright May 2011