Shifting Sand

August 12, 2021

I snapped the above photo last week in a little Massachusetts beach town during a mother-daughter trip with my daughter Ella. Which rule is the correct one to follow, we wondered. Ride a bike? Don't ride a bike? Bike both ways? We hadn't brought our bikes, but it's hard to know what we would have done if we had.

Looking at that telephone pole brought me back to the first time someone played the old Cat Stevens song "Father and Son" for me. I was about 13, and one line stuck out as encapsulating the essence of the unfairness of being a kid:

From the moment I could talk, I was ordered to listen.

Cat had captured my own experience of struggling to navigate life amid all of the contradictory messages kids are given about how to be a good person. Think for yourself / Obey all the rules. Be adventurous / Be careful. Be outgoing / Don't talk to strangers. Stand up to bullies / Never use your fists. Character is more important than looks / Dress for success. Do as I say, not as I do. It felt like I was always walking on shifting sand; I spent a lot of childhood afraid of getting in trouble for breaking rules I didn't know existed. Hearing "Father and Son" gave me the sense that at least one adult remembered what it was like to be in that circumstance. I felt visible.

I posted that crazy Massachusetts sign photo to my Facebook page, vastly amusing my friends, who supplied lots of snappy remarks. I think it tapped into an aspect of life today that hasn't yet found a cultural voice: The contradictions in the sign parallel those in all of our lives as the pandemic tries its darnedest to tell us it's not over. The rules for what it means to be a good person keep fluctuating: Signaling care and respect for others requires us constantly to learn a delicate new dance whose steps are changing day by day, and it feels almost impossible to get a solid footing. Are you exhausted? I am, too. But it reminds me of one of the toughest parts of being a kid, and that insight can't be bad.

The Internet tells me that Cat Stevens once said, "I'm an optimist, brought up on the belief that if you wait to the end of the story, you get to see the good people live happily ever after." I can't figure out exactly when or where he said this, but I'm nevertheless going to hold him to it.

—Deb