Poem: "Moving Objects with His Hands"
Jul. 28th, 2018 10:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithThis poem is spillover from the May 1, 2018 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from janetmiles, dialecticdreamer, and zeeth_kyrah. It also fills the "trust" square in my 5-1-18 card for the Pro Wrestling Bingo Fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with daisiesrockalot and curiosity. It belongs to the Shiv thread of the Polychrome Heroics series.
Warning: This poem contains some touchy topics. Highlight to read the warnings, some of which are spoilers. It features the inside of Shiv's head, which is always kind of a mess, and here he's stressing over situations that are not-quite-like school. It also has touch sensitivity, rude language, references to past abuse, age issues, Shiv is twedgy about math, and school in general, because his teachers were assholes, visual and tactile learning modes, low self-esteem, self-recrimination, tactile sensory-seeking, safety discussions, the importance of slightly damaged things in learning how to handle items carefully, emotional overload, discussion of educational abuse, Shiv finally tells Dr. G some of the bad schools he attended, anxiety, dissociation, relationship bank accounts, and other challenges. If these are sensitive issues for you, please consider your tastes and headspace before reading onward.
"Moving Objects with His Hands"
Friday, February 13, 2015
Shiv checked the weather report
for Mercedes, California and found
a nice warm day by his standards.
He threw on a purple Peas & Love t-shirt
that he'd gotten at the farmer's market, with
board shorts in purple, black, and white
and his black sneaker sandals.
He grabbed his abalone jacket
in case the weather turned bad.
Junket showed up right on time,
and Shiv wondered if he would
ever get used to the idea of
teleporting for casual visits
like the Finns seemed to do.
"Here's your tip," Shiv said,
handing over the little plaid tin.
"I made Chocolate Brain Bites."
"Thank you," Junket said. "It's
appreciated, though not required."
Shiv blinked at him. "I've never
seen the Finns not tip a teleporter
with food. I thought it was the thing.
Even Buttons always buys you
lunch or something like that."
"I just meant, the Finns tip me
whenever they hire me, so that
other passengers don't have to,"
Junket said, tucking the tin under
one arm and Shiv under the other.
"And here we are. Have a nice day."
Shiv licked his lips, trying to shake
the odd disorientation of suddenly
being in the Finns' living room with
no sense of having moved at all.
Two squealing boys smacked into
his legs from opposite directions,
nearly making him lose his balance.
"Hey, Monkey," he said, and then,
"Morning, Jaxon." They didn't let go.
"Shove off before I trip and bust my head."
"Boys, give Shiv room to move," Dr. G said.
"Good morning, Shiv, thank you for coming."
"It's good money," Shiv said with a shrug,
because Buttons was paying him for
the part of the day he spent with Jaxon.
Dr. G was wearing one of his silly sweaters,
mostly black-and-white, but each section had
a different design, and they were divided by
narrow ribbons of red, yellow, or blue.
It was possibly the most ridiculous one
that Shiv had seen yet, but he couldn't help
trying to follow the patterns with his eyes.
Secretly he thought that he might
actually miss it if Dr. G didn't show up
wearing such outrageous sweaters.
It just kind of seemed like part of him,
the way knives were part of Shiv.
"You're smiling," Dr. G said.
"Your sweater looks like
someone attacked you with
wrapping paper and ribbons,"
Shiv said with a smirk.
"Why thank you," Dr. G said,
smoothing his hands down
the front. "I work very hard for
this effect, and a fellow likes
to have his efforts noticed."
Shiv busted up laughing.
"Doc, it could be pitch dark
and we'd notice that."
"We're just about to sit down
for breakfast," Dr. G said.
"Would you like to join us?"
"Sure," Shiv said. He had
only grabbed a snack bar
before Junket arrived.
Dr. G led everyone into
the kitchen and then said,
"Today we're having fresh fruit
and cold cereal. You may choose
from Amber Waves, Honey Bundles,
or Hooper Fruits. Who wants what?"
The boys both went for Honey Bundles,
Shiv asked for Hooper Fruits, and
Dr. G took the Amber Waves.
It was pretty good cereal too,
with a lot of real fruit flavor.
There were little bowls of
blueberries and strawberries,
and several bananas that Dr. G
sliced into fun little fans.
The boys put banana coins
between their fingers, and when
nobody got smacked for it, Shiv
picked up one and demonstrated
a coin trick, walking it over his fingers.
Nobody else could duplicate that
without breaking the banana slice, though.
After breakfast, Shiv started picking up
the dishes. "Where do you want these?"
"Put them in the sink, please,"
said Dr. G. "Someone will
wash them later today."
Shiv put them in the sink.
"Okay, what next?"
"Let's go for a walk and
burn off some energy before
we try to sit still and work,"
Dr. G said. "It's good to move."
So they walked around the block.
Shiv had no trouble, having built up
his stamina to something decent again,
but before long the boys were flagging.
"My legs are tired," Jaxon whined.
"That can happen when you walk
for a while," Dr. G said. "Do you want
a ride? I like to be asked nicely."
That was so different from
Shiv's memories of being told
to shut up and stop whining that
it made an odd flutter in his belly
that he didn't want to look at closely.
"Ride, please," Jaxon managed.
"Gladly," Dr. G said, and scooped
the toddler onto his hip. "Edison?"
"I can make it home!" the boy said,
pouring on a spurt of energy.
He was a stubborn little cuss,
Shiv would give him that.
When they reached the house,
Dr. G said, "Potty break, and then
we'll choose a cartoon to watch."
Thank fuck Dr. G was there
to deal with the boys for that.
Everyone piled onto the couch
to watch The Sankofa Train,
which Shiv hadn't seen before.
As best he could figure out,
it involved a scientist and his kids
traveling around the world and through time
in some kind of super-gizmotronic train.
When the youngest child asked,
"Why do knives have handles?"
Shiv expected the answer he'd
been given: "So that you don't
cut off your fingers, dumbass."
Instead, it sparked a trip from
a chef school to knife factories
to a hole in the ground where
a muddy woman talked about
old stone knives without handles.
When the train went way back,
everyone oohed and aahed over
fuzzy cavemen breaking rocks.
Shiv was amazed by how much
he learned from a kiddie cartoon.
He had no idea that knives went back
over two and a half million years!
"That was ... actually kind of cool,"
he admitted as the credits rolled.
"I'm glad you liked it," Dr. G said.
"Again!" Jaxon crowed, kicking
his heels against the couch.
Kids might tire out easy,
but the problem was, they
never stayed like that for long.
"We've done a fun thing, and now
it's time for a learning thing," Dr. G said.
Jaxon stuck his lip out. "Aunt Tamicka
lets me watch all the cartoons I want!"
Shiv would bet that was baloney.
"Well, she's not feeling well, so today
we are following the Finn family rules,
which alternate fun and work," Dr. G said.
"Edison, what would you like to suggest?"
"Let's do numbers!" Edison said, scrambling
off the couch. "I can bring the stuff."
He came back lugging a tub with
smaller boxes tucked inside it.
"You guys like Legos, right?"
"I have some with letters,"
Shiv said, eyeing the tub.
Edison pried the lid off.
Inside were a batch of Legos
and some bigger blocks.
"Are those too little for Jaxon?"
Shiv said, twisting his hands together.
"Let's find out," Dr. G said. He
opened a drawer and took out
a little plastic tube. "This is
a choke tester, which shows
if a toddler could swallow things."
He showed them how some of the Legos
fit into the tube, but none of the Duplos.
Then he read the ages on the boxes.
"See, Duplos are for toddlers who might
still put things in their mouth, while Legos
are for preschoolers who don't do that."
Next Dr. G turned to Jaxon. "Do you
put toys in your mouth?" he asked.
"Nooo," Jaxon said, pouting
at him. "I'm not a baby!"
"Then you may play with
either the Duplo blocks or
the Lego blocks, whichever
you prefer," Dr. G said.
"Duplos are easier to hold, but
the Legos have more numbers,"
Edison said, dumping them out.
"Now we can see all of the pieces
to compare these different sets."
Shiv quickly realized that the Duplos
had factory-printed numbers from
one to ten, while the Legos were
hand-numbered and went higher.
While Edison showed Jaxon
how to make long numbers by
sticking the Duplos together,
Dr. G did the same with Legos.
One set of the Legos had
numerals on yellow blocks,
dots on red, and words
written out on blue.
Another set had blocks of
all different colors, with
numerals on one side
dots on another, and
words on the third.
"You can use these
to measure things,"
Dr. G explained as he
stacked blocks together.
"How many Legos does it
take to measure the box lid?"
Curious, Shiv assembled Legos
until they matched the width.
"Twenty-two," he said.
It was kind of like having
a ruler that could come apart.
Shiv experimented with
putting the blocks together
and taking them apart. These
were different than his letter blocks,
but they used the same basic idea.
Meanwhile Jaxon was doing his best
to assemble the whole set of ten in
the correct order, and coming close.
"It's easier to do fractions with Legos
than with Duplos, because Legos
have more shapes," Edison said,
picking up handful of the blocks.
Shiv tensed. "Fractions are hard."
"Nah, they're easy if you can
see them, like cutting a pie,"
Edison said. "Or Legos."
He began laying out sets
of the blocks together.
"This is a two-by-eight block,
it's one whole," Edison said.
"This is a two-by-four block,
it's one half." He went on
down to a one-eighth block.
Dr. G got a piece of paper
and began writing down
what Edison was saying
to make a set of fractions.
"So if you put one quarter
on three quarters, that makes
four quarters or one whole,"
Edison said, moving the blocks.
Tentatively Shiv reached out
and began shifting the blocks,
counting out one-two-three-four,
comparing them to the whole block,
and looking at different combinations.
It almost made sense to him.
"Got it," Jaxon said, holding up
a tall stack of numbered Duplos.
Edison counted out all ten,
then threw his hands in the air
and said, "Yay, you did it!"
Dr. G said, "Very good, Jaxon,
you worked hard on that. Can you
tell which numbers are bigger?"
"I dunno," Jaxon said, frowning.
"How do you know what's more?"
"It's easy," Edison said. "I'll get
the scale." He darted away.
"Why's he going into the kitchen
instead of back to the shelves
with the toys?" Shiv asked.
"We keep the math scale in
the kitchen because it's easier
to measure equivalent amounts in
that than going back-and-forth on
the kitchen scale," Dr. G explained.
The math scale turned out to be
a yellow stand thing with two buckets,
one blue and one red, at the ends
of its arms. It also came with
square blocks in all colors.
"It goes like this," Edison said.
He set out number Duplos and
then put that many blocks in
the buckets on each side.
"More is heavier, lower."
"See, if you put two blocks
in the blue bucket and three in
the red bucket, then the red one
sinks farther," Dr. G added. "That
means three is bigger then two.
Who wants to try it next?"
Jaxon grabbed the Duplos
and starting piling up blocks.
He needed a little help to match
the numerals to the right amount
of square blocks, but he could
count dots and match up
the blocks just fine.
"Look at that," Dr. G said.
"You're a regular mathematician!"
"He is not," Shiv said. "It takes
a ton of school to do math, and
even then most people suck at it."
"That's one approach, but I don't
think it works very well, and it sounds
like you don't either," Dr. G said.
"So? It's not like I got a choice,"
Shiv said. "What else even is there?"
"This system in which a child is
constantly moving objects with
his hands and actively exercising
his senses, also takes into account
a child's special aptitude for mathematics,"
Dr. G said. "When they leave the material,
the children very easily reach the point
where they wish to write out the operation."
"That sounds crazy," Shiv said, shaking
his head. "Who thinks like that?"
"A very wise scientist named
Maria Montessori, who studied
child development and then used
that science to create a school system
which supports natural learning instead of
forcing children to do things," Dr. G said.
"We can explore some of it later if you like.
Meanwhile, do you want to try the scale?"
"I dunno," Shiv said, rocking back and forth.
"Well, ask your hands," Dr. G said. "Do they
want to play with the balance blocks, or
would they rather lie still in your lap?"
Shiv's hands never wanted to lie still,
unless he was too wrecked to move at all,
but he'd gotten slapped for that often enough
to be wary of people tricking him into it.
Grumbling, he tucked them between
his knees to keep them out of trouble.
"Maybe you don't have enough room,"
Dr. G said. "You're bigger than the boys,
after all. Shall I move to the floor?"
Shiv had seen how hard it was for
Dr. G to get up once he was down.
"Naw, Molly would skin me."
"I don't think she'd do that, but
she might scold me a little bit,"
Dr. G said. "How about we do
a circle of safety instead? Put out
your arms and see how wide they go."
Rolling his eyes, Shiv obeyed, and
so did the boys. Everyone scooted apart
until their outstretched fingertips just touched.
When Dr. G's hand brushed Shiv's, he sat
back down in a new place, just out of reach.
That actually did make Shiv feel better.
Jaxon and Edison readily let him have
a turn with the math scale and blocks.
Shiv wasn't interested in the number blocks,
he just concentrated on figuring out how many
of the square blocks would fit into the buckets.
Then Dr. G said, "Why don't you try putting
something else in one bucket? Then you can
see how many blocks you need to put in
the other bucket to make the scale even."
That turned out to be more fun than Shiv
expected, because it didn't all come out even.
Edison was an old hat at this trick, though,
and showed Shiv how to move things around
between the buckets until they came out right.
Then Shiv's stomach grumbled loudly.
"That sounds like lunchtime," Dr. G said.
"Who else is getting hungry? I am."
"Me, me!" the boys shouted.
"Okay, let's go into the kitchen,"
Dr. G said. "I'll make grilled cheese."
Shiv dragged his feet a little, trying
to work through everything that
had happened so far today.
"You okay?" Dr. G murmured.
"I'm fine," Shiv said. "It's weird, is all.
I don't know what I expected, coming here
day after day, but it wasn't ... this."
"Can you tell me why?" Dr. G said.
"I guess I thought it'd be fooling around
with cartoons or crayons all day, or else
more like preschool," Shiv said, "but it's not."
"That's true," Dr. G said. "We like to mix up
what we do to keep from getting bored."
"I seen you showing things to Jaxon,
and he's learning new stuff," Shiv said,
fiddling with the drawstring of his shorts,
"but it's not like -- it's not school."
"It's not meant to be school, it's
just meant to be a fun way to spend
the day," Dr. G said. "Little kids
learn best through playing."
"I wish," Shiv muttered.
"We can talk more about this
later, if you would like," Dr. G said.
"For now, come help me make lunch."
Shiv wound up cutting thick slices
of homemade bread while Dr. G took
several cheeses from the fridge.
"Today our choices are Comté,
Cojack, or American cheese,"
said Dr. G. "Who wants what?
Shiv, taste the Comté at least --
I think you'll like that one."
Shiv took the pale sliver and
nibbled it tentatively. "Oh, wow,"
he said. "It tastes like jazz sounds."
"Nailed it," Dr. G said happily.
"Comté comes from pastured cows,
so all the different plants they eat
give the cheese a complex flavor."
Jaxon tried it too, but wrinkled his nose.
"I want real cheese, the kind that
comes in a raincoat," he said.
"This kind?" Dr. G said, offering him
some cheap slices wrapped in plastic.
"Yeah," Jaxon said. "Your cheese is yucky."
"Hey!" Shiv said, grabbing the half-eaten bit
of Comté before Jaxon could drop it on the floor.
"Don't waste that, give it to me if you don't want it."
"It's okay if you don't like the Comté yet, Jaxon,
you can always try it again another time," said Dr. G.
"Shiv is right, though -- don't drop it, please, and
see if anyone else wants what's left of it."
"Mine," Shiv said, shoving it in his mouth.
"Okay, so you want Comté on your sandwich,
Jaxon wants American, and I'm having Cojack,"
said Dr. G. "Edison, what about you?"
"Cojack, please," said Edison. "Who's
going to butter the bread? Shiv already cut."
"I think you and Jaxon can manage buttering,
just ask Shiv if you need a hand," said Dr. G.
"I'm going to heat up the skillet now."
The boys didn't do the neatest job of
buttering the bread, but it held together
surprisingly well, and they finished quickly.
It took a few minutes to cook the sandwiches,
and it was all Shiv could do not to snatch his
straight out of the skillet, it smelled so good.
The first bite made him close his eyes in bliss,
the cheese sweet-tart and complicated.
He liked the bread too, thick and chewy
with a crunchy outside from the skillet.
"What kind of bread did you call this?"
"That's sourdough, and we make it
at home from a starter," Dr. G said,
then went to the counter to bring back
a pretty blue crock with rusty streaks.
"This is where our starter lives."
The doughy stuff inside smelled
sharp and yeasty, almost like beer.
"What are the other crocks?"
Shiv asked around a mouthful
of delicious grilled cheese.
"Well, the red-and-green one
with the leaves on its side has
some kimchee that we got from
a Korean friend," said Dr. G.
"Can anyone guess what
the next crock might be?"
"Pumpkin!" Jaxon said,
looking at the orange crock.
"Something else with leaves,"
Shiv guessed, because the lid had
some sort of leaf on top as a handle.
"It's sauerkraut, which is made from
cabbage leaves," Dr. G said. "The last
in the tall green jug is kombucha,
which is a sour fizzy drink."
"So it's kind of like color coding,"
Shiv said slowly. "The red crock
has the spicy stuff, and the leaves
match the ones with cabbage."
"Exactly!" Dr. G said with a grin.
"You're very observant."
"Why do you have so many,
though?" Shiv wondered.
"We like to cook, and we're
currently exploring whether
fermented foods help with
digestion and mood as much
as they're said to," Dr. G replied.
"I just like the taste," Edison said
as he finished his sandwich. "Well,
sourdough and sauerkraut. I don't
like the other things much yet."
"That's okay, you might grow into
liking kimchee and kombucha
some day, or not," Dr. G said.
That was a world apart from
the "Shut up and eat it!" that
Shiv had grown up hearing.
He'd learned to eat almost anything,
though, and that was a useful skill.
"Shiv, would you like some starter
to take home?" Dr. G asked. "I know
you're learning to cook, and you can make
all kinds of stuff with sourdough, not just bread."
"Like what?" Shiv said, curiosity pulling him in.
"Pancakes, waffles, muffins, biscuits --
almost anything you could make with
ordinary dough, you can also do
with sourdough," Dr. G said.
"It sounds cool, but I don't
know how, and I don't have
a nice crock to keep it in,"
Shiv said, looking down.
"First, nobody knows how
to raise sourdough until they
learn, which is pretty easy to do,"
said Dr. G. "Second, you don't
need a fancy crock. You can use
an old mayonnaise jar or a butter tub."
"Then why ..." Shiv waved a hand
at the row of gorgeous crocks. He'd
seen enough ceramics for sale at
the farmer's market to guess they
added up to a couple hundred dollars.
"We like to support local artists, we like
to look at pretty things, and we like to keep
our pets in nice habitats," Dr. G said.
"Pets?" Shiv said, confused.
"I thought those were all food."
"They are food, so maybe I should
have said 'livestock' instead of 'pets,'
but we tend to think fondly of them,"
Dr. G said. "Yeast is alive -- that's
why it grows and makes bubbles,
and you need to feed it periodically."
"Huh," Shiv said. "It's kinda cool."
"Why don't you take a starter home
in a butter tub, and then look for
a crock in your resource building?"
Dr. G said. "I bet you'll find one."
"If not there, Nick's Thrifts probably
has something I can use," Shiv said,
nibbling on his lip. "I have seen
water crocks there, you know, that
you fill with water in winter so the air
in the house doesn't dry out so much."
"Get one of those, wash it, and put
cheesecloth or a board over the top,"
Dr. G said. "I've seen people raise
sourdough in that kind of crock."
He rambled on for a while about
different crocks and yeast cultures
that he had seen people use.
Shiv kind of enjoyed listening
to Dr. G, even if it didn't make
a whole lot of sense to him.
The boys were fascinated, too.
After they finished lunch, Dr. G
got an empty tub to transfer some
of the starter, and Shiv wrote
his name on the plastic lid.
Then Dr. G described how Shiv
should take care of the starter
and where to look for recipes.
Edison even showed Shiv
how to look up recipes in
the family cookbook online.
Molly came in just as Shiv
was putting his starter
with his unused coat.
"Oh hey, it looks like you
found our micro zoo," she said.
"Your dad called them pets, but
they're supposed to be food, not
a zoo," Shiv said, frowning.
Molly chuckled. "It's okay,
I just say 'zoo' because the type
of yeast tends to be slightly different
for each starter that we make -- they
all like to eat different things."
"I didn't know that," Shiv said.
"Well, now you do," Molly said.
"I think Jaxon is a little young to enjoy
exploring a microscope, but some time
you might want to take a peek at what
our yeast beasts look like on a slide."
Shiv felt pretty sure that looking at
crawly things would kill his appetite
for sourdough, but there was no need
to say that out loud. "Maybe."
"Let's play together for a while, before
Da needs to go to work," Molly said,
leading them back to the living room.
Dr. G and Shiv were regulars,
but neither of them could be there
for the whole day. So other folks
swapped in for part of the time.
Surprisingly, Jaxon was smooth
with it. He didn't like a lot of people,
but he sure did like the Finns.
They were kind of hard to dislike.
Shiv knew. He had tried.
"What are we playing?"
Molly asked as they sat down.
"We did math this morning,"
Edison said. "Are we still, or
do we switch to something new?"
Molly grinned. "Oh, I know
just the thing to show Shiv.
What will you and Jaxon do?"
"I want to do the trinomial cube,
but it's ... maybe too high for
Jaxon to like?" Edison said.
"Get it out, and I will make
the presentation," Dr. G said.
"Jaxon may not be ready for
the abstract math you're doing,
but he loves blocks and colors, so I
think that material will appeal to him."
Edison pulled out a wooden box
with blocks of different shapes
and colors stacked inside it.
Dr. G very methodically took out
the blocks one at a time, then
rebuilt the cube on the lid.
"Now you try," he said
to Jaxon, and the boy
began trying to do what
he'd just seen Dr. G do,
moving the cube to the box.
Molly came back with her arms
full of several wooden boxes and trays.
"These were mine first, and now I love
introducing new people to them," she said.
"Jewelry?" Shiv guessed. He could feel
wires and beads through the wood.
"Good guess, but no," Molly said as
she sat down with him. "These are
counting beads. Normally each activity
would be presented one at a time, but
you're older, so I think you'll enjoy
seeing them all together like this."
Shiv sighed. "I suck at counting."
"Well, from what I've heard, I think
your teachers were idiots," Molly said.
"Got it in one," Shiv said, making
an imaginary mark in the air.
"Little kids learn better with
their hands, and touch-dominant
people do too, even as adults,"
Molly said. "I think you'll like
the beads, even if all you do is
make artsy patterns instead of
trying to do actual math."
As long as people weren't
pestering him to do math,
Shiv could fake playing with
whatever they put in front of him.
It was better than doing paperwork.
Besides, he might not actually
trust anyone, but he was learning
that none of the Finns intended
to screw him on purpose.
"Okay, show me your
bead thingies," Shiv said.
"The first set is called
the colored bead stair,"
Molly said, showing him
a bunch of beads strung
on wires of different lengths.
She set them up in a triangle, and
Shiv noticed that each bar of beads
was a different size and color.
"One-two-three--" he counted,
all the way up to nine. "Why
are they set up like that?"
Molly grinned at him.
"Because this way, you
can associate the colors
with the numbers," she said.
"One is always red. Two is
always green, and so on."
"There's no ten," Shiv pointed out.
"There is, but it's in a later set,"
Molly said. "Humor me and
work with this one a little first."
She set down a wooden tray
with a groove at the bottom
and a triangle above that.
"You can lay the beads here
and they'll stay put, even if
you bump into them a bit."
Shiv had always adored
moving objects with his hands,
but it had also gotten him in trouble.
He knew that Molly wanted him
to handle the things, and his fingers
positively itched for the shiny wires
and beads, but he was still afraid.
"Problem?" Molly asked gently.
Shiv bit his lip, hard enough
to taste blood. "They're for babies."
Just as Dr. G had, Molly got out
that tube thing and dropped
some of the beads into it.
"Nope, definitely not for babies,"
she said firmly. "These are
only for people old enough
to know what's safe to put
in your mouth or not."
"I dunno ..." Shiv said.
"Maybe it'll help if I lay out
the scale for you," Molly said.
"Babies need totally safe toys.
Toddlers can start using things
that require just a little care,
such as hard wooden blocks."
"Lego caltrops," Shiv giggled,
looking at the tub on the shelf.
"Exactly," Molly said. "If you
don't take care of your Legos,
someone could bruise their foot.
Older children can play with things
that might break if handled carelessly.
It's important to introduce risk so that
they can learn to use tools like knives."
"I cut the bread for lunch, and then
Edison and Jaxon buttered it," Shiv said.
"That's a great division of labor,"
Molly said. "Kids can't learn skills
like that unless adults are willing
to let them have, say, a butter knife
and then later on a fruit knife."
Shiv had to learn that on his own,
because nobody would ever
let him have a sharp knife or
anything else the least bit risky.
"So these beads ..." Shiv said,
tucking his hands under his butt.
"Are for folks old enough to use them
responsibly," Molly said. "Care to guess
when was the last time I used them?"
"When you were little," Shiv said.
"Nope," Molly said, quirking a smile.
"When I started studying to become
a paramedic, I had to learn how to use
my head and my hands at the same time.
That was really hard. I kept fumbling
drug dosages. So I sat down with
my old friends, the counting beads,
and worked out the equations like this
until I could do that math in my head."
"Huh," Shiv said. "I didn't know that
grownups could use their hands for math.
I always got smacked for it because
everyone said only babies did that,
and it'd make me stupid, but I
wound up stupid anyway."
"I don't think you're stupid, I
think you had crummy teachers,"
Molly said. "That's not your fault."
"I would love to hear names, Shiv,
any time you care to share some,"
Dr. G said in a carefully even tone.
Shiv wasn't a rat, but he was
tempted to set Dr. G on them.
To distract himself, he asked Molly,
"Show me these things again?"
She showed him how the beads
stacked into a pyramid, then said,
"Since you already know how to count,
why not try doing this with your superpower?"
That turned out to be fun. Shiv could
easily feel the wires and the glass beads
with his ability and fit them onto the board.
Next Molly opened a big square box.
Inside lay handfuls of bead bars in
all the familiar colors, plus a new one.
"Ten is gold?" Shiv said, grabbing
one of the bars to look at it closer.
The gold beads sparkled in the light.
"Well done," Molly said. "Ten is gold.
Put that with the colored beads, and
you can count the teens. We have
a special tray for that activity."
She showed him a piece of wood
that had both a square and a triangle
above a long groove at the bottom.
Without further prompting, Shiv
filled in the triangle with bead bars.
He puzzled over the square briefly,
then said, "Aha! The tens go here."
"Yes, they do," Molly said. "Go on
and fill in the rest of the set. Then
you can count them all together."
It was silly. He knew how to count.
But Shiv couldn't resist running
his fingers over the bumps and
saying the words out loud.
Molly looked thrilled.
She was easily amused,
as Dr. G sometimes put it.
"So what else can you do
with stuff like this?" Shiv asked.
"There's a way to lay out all these beads
in a big pattern," Molly said, "but around here,
mostly we use them for counting things, working
out math problems, or just playing games."
"What kind of games?" Shiv wondered.
"One of my favorites is the snake game,"
Molly said. "You lay out the color bars in
a random squiggle, then count the beads."
She showed him how. "When you reach
ten, replace that part with a gold bar."
Shiv watched her change the beads.
"That's kind of pretty," he said.
"I like it because it feels ... finished,
in my head," Molly explained.
"Okay, I get that," Shiv said.
"Moving up to bigger numbers,
there are chains and squares,"
Molly said, showing him a new set.
She stretched out chains of each color
and put the matching square at the end.
Then she gathered the squares and
stacked them into a pyramid.
"They're not all the same length,"
Shiv said, looking at the chains.
"That's because they show you
the squares," Molly said. "Look,
there are two twos, and three threes.
If you fold the chain at the joint, then
each one will make a square, just like
the bead squares over here."
"Huh," Shiv said. He picked up
the yellow chain and carefully bent it
into a zig-zag sort of square shape.
"That's it," Molly said. "Four fours
make a square, that's sixteen. Making
squares is useful for many projects, like
sewing a quilt or tiling a floor. Can you
think of something that uses pyramids?"
Shiv thought a moment. "Stacking socks,"
he said, "or produce at the farmer's market."
"Exactly," Molly said. "If you connect
what you're learning to ways you can
use it, then it sticks a lot better."
"Yeah," Shiv said, picking up
a longer chain of beads and
running it through his hands.
"Go ahead, give your body
a chance to learn the numbers
this way," Molly encouraged.
The feeling of the chain in
his fingers made Shiv smile, and
he could sense the extra strips that
held the solid squares together.
"I like these things," he said.
Molly smiled. "I hoped that
you would," she said. "Do you
want to see some more?"
"What else is there?" Shiv said.
"We've done the numbers."
"Look at the ten bars," she said.
"There's a whole other set of stuff
using the golden beads to show
places and powers of ten."
She brought out more boxes.
The smallest held single beads.
Another held the ten bars and
a matching slat where you could
put nine of the golden beads.
Then there was a chain of ten tens
and a matching hundred square.
Molly slowly poured a long, long chain
into Shiv's hands. "That's a thousand,"
she said, "and so is this." She showed
him a solid cube of golden beads.
"How do you know?" he said.
"Because that's always how many
you get with this stack of golden beads,"
Molly said. "We could count them."
Shiv shook his head. "I don't
want to count to a thousand."
He probably couldn't get that far
without making a mistake, and
that would be embarrassing.
"You don't need to," Molly said.
"Look, a gold bar is ten, right?"
"That's what you said," Shiv replied.
"So the width is ten, the length is ten,
and the height is ten," Molly said, pointing.
"Width by length is ten tens, that's a hundred.
There are ten layers, so that's a thousand."
As she spoke, she used a pointer
to mark off the golden beads.
Shiv ran his fingers over the cube.
"Yeah, okay," he said. "It's a thousand."
"So anyway, that's the basic set
of beads," Molly said. "There are
other tools that go with them, and lots
of things you can do, but I figured you
would just like the look and feel of these."
"They're really something," Shiv said.
"You think they're still good at my age?"
"They're good for anyone who needs
to make math more concrete," Molly said.
"They may help you get the hang of numbers
better than a calculator just printing the answer."
He couldn't help wondering if something like this
might make it easier for him to understand
the budgeting and bookkeeping stuff
Dymin was trying to teach him.
The wires were so shiny,
the ends sharp where they had
been cut and rolled into loops.
The beads were glass with
a foil tube lining the center
to make them even shinier.
Then Shiv noticed something.
"This one's broken," he said,
picking up one of the ten bars.
"You should throw it away."
"It's not broken, it's just bent,"
Molly said with a surprising smile.
"We keep this one, despite that,
because it's important."
"Why?" Shiv said. "You're rich,
you could just buy new ones."
"Because these tools can bend,
or even break," Molly said. "This is
one that I bent when I was little, before
I learned how to be careful with things.
This is how I learned that lesson. I
broke a few, too -- beads everywhere."
"And you didn't get in trouble?" Shiv said,
rolling his lower lip between his teeth.
"No, because I was just starting to learn
how to handle small things that are
a bit fragile. Of course I broke some,"
Molly said. "Now I don't, but I can tell
that story to new people while they
are learning how to use the beads."
Shiv had a hard time imagining breaking
something and not getting in trouble for it.
That was how he had come up with
his door routine in the first place.
He hovered a finger just above
the damaged bar. He could feel
the bend in the wire. "So you
don't want me to fix it?"
"Please don't," Molly said.
"We appreciate the offer, but
we like the bend where it is.
It teaches people to be gentle."
Shiv struggled to wrap his mind
around the idea that a damaged toy
could be valued so much that people
wouldn't want it fixed, even though
Shiv could make it as good as new.
"Can we borrow some colored beads
for a while?" Edison asked as he came
over to their spot. "Jaxon wants to see
how the numbers go with these blocks."
"Sure, we have plenty to spare," Molly said,
waving a hand at the various boxes. Then
she turned to Shiv. "That's why we have
full sets, even for use at home, so that
several people can use these without
getting in each other's way. We always
had friends over playing with us."
Shiv had grown up in crowded houses,
but trying to imagine having so many friends
that they needed extra supplies ... just
made his brain bend out of shape.
Jaxon had been playing with
the cube thingie like it was
a regular set of blocks for
a while, but now he was
watching Edison take it
apart in the same steps
that Dr. G used earlier.
Edison set out the pieces
in a pattern, then added
number bars along the side,
talking a mile a minute about math
that was way over Shiv's head.
Jaxon was paying attention like
it made some kind of sense to him,
even though he was only three.
"How is he even doing that?"
Shiv muttered with a scowl.
"Jaxon's hands have been
learning the blocks," Dr. G said,
scooting over closer to them.
"Now he wants to hear more
about the numbers that go
with them. He probably won't
be able to do this himself for
a while, but he likes watching."
Maybe the stupid toys had
made a difference, after all.
If they had, if this was real ...
Restless, Shiv poured
the hundred chain through
his fingers, trying to settle
himself so he wouldn't keep
thinking of his own past.
The more he tried to push it
down, though, the more it
bubbled up in his brain.
Shiv shoved the golden chain
at Molly. "Scuseme," he choked,
and ran out of the living room.
He stumbled into the bathroom,
shoving the door so hard that it
bounced instead of latching.
Shiv slid down the wall,
shaking with unnamed stress,
until his butt hit the floor and
he pulled his knees up to clutch.
The wall in the back of his head
wavered, and when he pushed on it
to shore it up, it made an ugly sound
like rubbing against a balloon.
Shiv rocked back and forth,
bumping his spine against
the hard wall of the bathroom.
It helped ground him, a little.
A gentle tap on the doorframe
startled him, making him jerk up.
"Are you okay?" Dr. G asked,
not coming into the room.
Mutely Shiv shook his head.
"I'm sorry to hear that,"
said Dr. G. "I know you're
not much of a talker, especially
when you're upset. May I just
sit with you? We don't have
to talk unless you want to."
"Okay," Shiv said, his voice
cracking halfway through the word.
Dr. G slipped into the room,
closed the door behind him,
and offered Shiv a pillow.
Shiv grabbed it and stuffed it
behind him. At least it was
more comfortable than the wall,
and he didn't really need bruises.
"May I sit down?" Dr. G asked,
waving a hand at the can.
Shiv nodded, then pressed
his face against his knees.
Everything felt like too much.
He struggled in silence for
long minutes, trying to get
his heaving emotions under
some kind of control, but
it just wasn't working.
When Shiv came up for air,
his breath caught in a sob.
Sniffling, he wiped his nose
with his hand. He wasn't
wearing long sleeves.
Silently, a tissue appeared
right in front of Shiv.
He snatched it and blew
his nose noisily, then
tossed it at the trash can.
Just as silently, the box
of tissues settled on his knee,
decorated with cartoon geese.
It took more than a few tissues,
but eventually Shiv managed
to stop not-quite crying.
"Fuck," he muttered.
"Mmm," Dr. G said,
offering wordless support.
"I know it's stupid, okay?"
Shiv snapped. "It's over,
it's in the past, I should just
get the fuck over it and
go on with my life."
"If it were over, then it
wouldn't still be hurting you,"
Dr. G said gently. "This looks
like something is lingering."
Shiv mashed his hands
against his eyeballs and
tried to blot out the world.
"Fuck," he said again.
"It's okay to vent if you
feel a need," Dr. G said.
"The door is thick enough
so people might hear sound
but shouldn't hear words."
That was reassuring.
"It's not that I hate Jaxon,"
Shiv said. "He's okay,
for a kid. It's just -- I feel
so jealous, I could scream."
"There are places for that,
if you need it," Dr. G said.
Shiv sighed. He really didn't
want to lose that much control.
"No?" Dr. G said. "That's fine.
I wonder what kind of things
make you feel jealous, though."
"Seeing Jaxon with the toys,
all the pretty pieces," Shiv said.
"Then you and Molly just explain
everything so makes sense, and --"
His voice ground to a halt, like
a car running out of gas on the road.
"I'm listening," Dr. G assured him.
"I want what he has," Shiv whispered.
"Of course you do," Dr. G said.
"Everyone needs to be taught what
they want to know, treated gently,
and given opportunities to explore
new and interesting things."
"But I'm jealous, and that's
bad," Shiv protested.
"Emotions aren't good or bad,
Shiv, they just are," Dr. G said.
"If anyone told you that some of
your feelings weren't okay to have,
then they were lying to you."
Shiv snorted. He knew damn well
that people never wanted him to get
jealous or angry or a lot of other things.
"All feelings are valid," Dr. G went on.
"Jealousy is a perfectly natural reaction
when your needs aren't getting met
and you see someone else's are."
"Yeah," Shiv said. "That's it."
He'd spent most of his life with
his nose pressed to a window,
wanting things he couldn't have.
"When you were Jaxon's age,
you needed adults to help you, but
they didn't. You needed toys and
lessons that played to your strengths,
but you didn't get any," Dr. G said.
"I bet that felt awful, didn't it?"
"It fucking sucked," Shiv grated.
"So you can be sad and angry about
that. You have every right," Dr. G said.
"You don't need to be jealous of Jaxon
right now, though, because you can
have the same things he has."
"He doesn't hate school yet,
and I do," Shiv pointed out.
"So? This isn't school, it's play
that helps you learn," Dr. G said.
"What if I don't want to do that?"
Shiv said, although the jealousy
was still eating him up inside.
"Then you don't have to," Dr. G said.
"You should have gotten a good education,
but people shortchanged you. That doesn't
give anyone a right to dictate your life now.
You're a legal adult; it is your choice what,
if anything, you would like to learn."
Shiv huffed. "Boss White still wants
me to learn paperwork," he said.
"Well, as long as you choose to work
for him, that gives him some right to tell
you what to do," Dr. G said. "Based on
what I saw today, I think you might find it
easier to learn those skills with something
in your hands to represent the numbers."
Shiv thought longingly of the beads
and how they might make learning
a budget easier. "Yeah, maybe."
"It's up to you, then," Dr. G said.
Shiv struggled to figure out
what he wanted to do, but it
was all just a tangled mess
in his head, like his whole life.
Restless, he bounced against
the pillow that cushioned his back
against the hard wall behind him.
Dr. G watched for a few minutes,
then said, "Would you like to tell
me what's bothering you, Shiv?
Maybe I could help with it."
"Why couldn't people explain
things so they made sense?"
Shiv wailed. "I tried and tried,
and all they did was make me
feel stupid for doing it all wrong!
I thought it was just you, because
you make everything better, but
it's not. Molly can do it too."
His nose started running again,
damn it. Shiv grabbed a tissue
and cleaned his face with
quick, angry swipes.
"Why couldn't I have
nice things like this stuff?"
Shiv went on, forcing the words
out through a throat that tried
to close itself around them.
"They're so pretty, and I
think they woulda helped."
"Are you just venting, or
would you like answers?"
Dr. G asked gently.
Shiv had to clear
his throat before he
could say, "Answers."
"Well, there are several
that I can think of," Dr. G said.
"First, most people don't know
how to teach this way, or use
these materials. It's based on
actual science, not politics or
convenience like public schools."
"Oh," Shiv said. "But it didn't
look like rocket science."
He'd seen Halley and even
Edison doing things that Shiv
couldn't begin to follow.
This was a lot simpler.
Wasn't it?
"When you use
a butterfly knife,
does it look hard,
or easy?" Dr. G said.
"It's a lot harder than
it looks," Shiv said. "You
have to be real careful,
especially with a double,
or else you'll cut yourself."
"Exactly," Dr. G said. "It's not
actually easy, but your skill
makes it look that way."
"Okay ... I kinda get that,"
Shiv said. "But what's so hard
about teaching the toys?"
"Each one has its own pattern
of presentation," Dr. G said.
"I'm not a Montessori teacher,
but I learned some of the methods.
They're very particular, like how
you do a science experiment
exactly the same each time."
"Huh," Shiv said. "I guess
that would be pretty hard.
But it makes easy listening."
"That's the idea," Dr. G said.
"The teacher's job is just to make it
easy for kids to learn. They're already
primed to do that -- it's instinctive."
"Then why didn't teachers just do
things the right way?" Shiv said.
"The second reason is resources,"
Dr. G said. "Poor schools can't afford
nicer tools and toys. They have a hard time
getting good teachers. The same is true for
schools in ethnic neighborhoods. I think that
one reason you had difficulty was because you
went to bad schools that just didn't have
the kind of supports you needed."
"Yeah," Shiv said with a sigh.
"Some didn't have enough books, or
desks, or stuff was old and falling apart.
Nobody had time for me when I was always
behind in class or making trouble or whatever."
"Well, that's what happens when kids don't
get their needs met," Dr. G said. "They can't
learn, which upsets them, and then they act out.
That's just the educational side, not even counting
the fact that you needed extra help to heal from
the neglect and abuse you suffered earlier."
"They just said it was my fault and
that I was bad," Shiv said glumly.
"That was wrong. They shouldn't
have said those things," Dr. G replied.
"This brings us to a third reason."
"What's that?" Shiv said, looking up.
"To put it in your terms," Dr. G said,
some people are just assholes."
Shiv snorted a laugh. "No shit."
"They enjoy using their power
to push people around, and they
like hurting others," Dr. G said.
"Children make attractive victims
since it's hard for them to fight back."
"Kids are anyone's meat," Shiv said.
"As long as you don't piss off anyone
who matters, you can do what you want."
"That's what gets a bully's attention,"
Dr. G said. "Some people just don't
care if they hurt others, or else they
go out of their way to do that."
"People like me," Shiv said.
"Let's unpack that a little more,"
Dr. G said. "You're rude more often
than not, but that's a combination of
how you grew up and your personality.
You're learning other options now."
"I guess," Shiv said, shrugging.
"But everyone knows I'm a jerk."
"You do have a rough sense of humor,
and you're a sadomasochist. You like
giving and receiving certain specific kinds
of pain," Dr. G said. "You don't seem inclined
to hurt people at random, though, and you're
getting along better now that you have
halfway-decent people around you."
"Maybe," Shiv said. "But I'm still
a fuckup. That hasn't changed."
"What makes you feel that?" Dr. G said.
"I wish I could just play the way
Jaxon does," Shiv whispered.
"It was fun for a while, but then ...
I'm so screwed up, my head
is a total mess inside."
"I'm sorry that things got
so tense, Shiv," said Dr. G.
"Today was meant to be fun,
instead of stressful."
"Not your fault, doc,"
Shiv said with a shrug.
"You didn't screw me over."
"I know, but I still regret that
it happened," Dr. G said, and
there was that spark again,
like he wanted to hurt someone
for messing around with Shiv.
Boss White looked like that sometimes.
Shiv fidgeted in place. "School records
are public," he said, not looking up.
"That's true, but you've had
too many people trampling over
your boundaries -- especially after
the incident with Halley," said Dr. G.
"I might wish, but I won't look at
any more of your records without
your explicit consent, Shiv."
It was scary, but it was
also incredibly tempting.
Shiv felt that there wasn't
quite enough air in the room,
panting like he'd run a race.
"Sit up a little, please, and
give your lungs some space,"
Dr. G said. "Slow, deep breaths."
Shiv tried to follow along, but
it was hard to obey the directions.
Gradually it helped, though.
If he told Dr. G where to look,
then all the crap would come
tumbling out of the closets, but
it wouldn't technically be ratting
if Shiv didn't name names.
"Elliott Elementary, Madison ...
Culler Middle School, Elba Secondary,
Lincoln High, Central High," Shiv gasped.
"Others. Can't remember 'em all."
"That's okay," Dr. G assured him.
"I don't need you to remember them.
All I need is your permission to look
for the people who hurt you."
Shiv's tongue was stuck
to the roof of his mouth.
Unsticking it made him cough.
Dr. G was right there with
a bottle of water that he
had gotten somewhere.
Shiv grabbed it and
sucked down half of it,
coughing and sputtering.
"Do it," he said, staring
at the floor beneath him.
"Okay," said Dr. G. "That's
all I need, Shiv. Thank you."
Shiv nodded, pressing
the cool bottle against
his heated cheeks.
"That was a hard thing,
telling me about the schools
and coping with such big feelings,"
Dr. G said. "It's very brave of you.
I'm glad that you could tell me."
The words soaked in like
water into dry ground,
making Shiv feel as if
he would float away.
He couldn't quite seem
to find his body right now.
Dr. G kept talking, though,
his voice low and rumbly,
sometimes in English and
other times something else.
Shiv didn't mind. It all just
blurred into a familiar murmur,
like a television in another room.
Slowly he felt less panicky
and started to feel his skin
and bones more. By the time
he finished the bottle of water,
Shiv felt almost human again.
"Doing a little better?" Dr. G said.
"Yeah, some," Shiv said, tossing
the empty bottle into the trash can.
"Are you ready to wash your face and
go back to the living room?" Dr. G said.
"Or do you need to go home early?"
"I'm fine," Shiv said as he went
to splash water on his face.
Maybe if he used enough,
nobody would notice that
his nose had been running.
"That's good," Dr. G said.
"I have to leave shortly for
my afternoon appointments, but
if you need me, send a message and
I'll get back to you as soon as I can."
"Okay," Shiv said as he opened
the door of the bathroom.
Nobody made a fuss when
they rejoined the group.
Dr. G said goodbye to
everyone, then headed
off to meet his clients.
Shiv looked around
the living room. All of
the beads and blocks were
put away, but something else
had taken their place.
It looked like an easel,
except one side was beaded
and the other was a chalkboard.
Messy math equations started
at the top, and down the side
it read, Peace Paco Pax ...
and more words that Shiv
couldn't even figure out.
Below that were scribbles,
probably from Jaxon.
The boys themselves were
curled up on the couch, wrapped
in Edison's Microfyne blanket, while
cartoon swans ice-skated on the screen.
Shiv lifted a hand toward the easel,
then dropped it back to his side.
"It's okay if you want to use that,"
Molly said. "The boys are done."
"Mmm?" Shiv said, looking at them.
"Jaxon wanted to see the numbers
for the trinomial cube, so Edison
showed him," she explained.
"So that's what those are,"
Shiv said. "And then what?"
"Then things got a little tense,
so we talked about maintaining
our relationship bank accounts and
tried writing out a peaceful mantra,"
Molly said. "Eventually they decided
watching some Tranquil Toons would
help, so that's where we're at now."
"Relationship ... bank accounts?"
Shiv said, goggling at the idea.
"Sure," Molly said. "Come around
to this side and I'll show you."
Shiv flicked the big wooden beads
back and forth. "A scoreboard?"
"It can be," Molly said. "This is called
an abacus, and you can use it like
a scoreboard, or like a calculator."
She split the top row of beads in half.
"Now if I do something for you ..." She
flicked one bead to the right. "... and you
do something for me, it stays in balance."
Then she pushed all the beads together.
"But if one person does all the work,
then it's unbalanced, which feels bad."
A light went on in Shiv's brain.
"Oh! It's like trading favors."
"Pretty much," Molly said.
"We were talking about why
Buttons can get antsy when
we offer to do things for her."
"She needs to do things back,"
Shiv said at once. "Sometimes,
people do things just because
they want you in their debt."
"That's okay," Molly said.
"We can always use
another scientist here!"
"I think she'd like that,"
Shiv said softly. "I mean,
she's the best button woman
ever, but it's not her real thing,
you know? It just a job that
she could actually get."
"I understand," Molly said.
"Maybe we'll ask her to give
Edison a science lesson. He's
run through all the local scientists."
She snickered. "Maybe then Buttons
will see why loaning Jaxon to us
is such a big favor here."
Shiv was starting to realize
that maybe it was as hard being
way smarter than everyone else
as it was being way dumber.
He looked at the two boys
cuddled together on the couch,
as trusting as puppies.
"Yeah," he whispered.
"That'd be a good thing."
"They look comfy, don't they?"
Molly said. "Shall we join them?"
Shiv glanced at the screen,
where the swans had been
replaced by dancing giraffes.
Suddenly he just wanted
to sprawl out and not feel
anything for a while.
"Uh huh," Shiv said,
leaning a little closer.
Molly sat down in
the loveseat and patted
the cushion beside her.
"You want company, or
space?" She waved
at a nearby chair.
Shiv eyed the spot
next to her. That was
a lot of trust to ask, yeah,
but ... he didn't really feel
like sitting alone right now.
An elephant appeared
on the television and began
blowing cool jazz through his trunk.
A monkey joined the elephant,
strumming her tail like a bass.
Shiv sidled into place next to Molly,
trying not to jostle her too much. She
just smiled and made room for him.
It felt, maybe, a little bit like home.
* * *
Notes:
This poem is long, so its notes appear in a separate post.
janetmiles, dialecticdreamer, and zeeth_kyrah. It also fills the "trust" square in my 5-1-18 card for the Pro Wrestling Bingo Fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with daisiesrockalot and curiosity. It belongs to the Shiv thread of the Polychrome Heroics series.Warning: This poem contains some touchy topics. Highlight to read the warnings, some of which are spoilers. It features the inside of Shiv's head, which is always kind of a mess, and here he's stressing over situations that are not-quite-like school. It also has touch sensitivity, rude language, references to past abuse, age issues, Shiv is twedgy about math, and school in general, because his teachers were assholes, visual and tactile learning modes, low self-esteem, self-recrimination, tactile sensory-seeking, safety discussions, the importance of slightly damaged things in learning how to handle items carefully, emotional overload, discussion of educational abuse, Shiv finally tells Dr. G some of the bad schools he attended, anxiety, dissociation, relationship bank accounts, and other challenges. If these are sensitive issues for you, please consider your tastes and headspace before reading onward.
"Moving Objects with His Hands"
Friday, February 13, 2015
Shiv checked the weather report
for Mercedes, California and found
a nice warm day by his standards.
He threw on a purple Peas & Love t-shirt
that he'd gotten at the farmer's market, with
board shorts in purple, black, and white
and his black sneaker sandals.
He grabbed his abalone jacket
in case the weather turned bad.
Junket showed up right on time,
and Shiv wondered if he would
ever get used to the idea of
teleporting for casual visits
like the Finns seemed to do.
"Here's your tip," Shiv said,
handing over the little plaid tin.
"I made Chocolate Brain Bites."
"Thank you," Junket said. "It's
appreciated, though not required."
Shiv blinked at him. "I've never
seen the Finns not tip a teleporter
with food. I thought it was the thing.
Even Buttons always buys you
lunch or something like that."
"I just meant, the Finns tip me
whenever they hire me, so that
other passengers don't have to,"
Junket said, tucking the tin under
one arm and Shiv under the other.
"And here we are. Have a nice day."
Shiv licked his lips, trying to shake
the odd disorientation of suddenly
being in the Finns' living room with
no sense of having moved at all.
Two squealing boys smacked into
his legs from opposite directions,
nearly making him lose his balance.
"Hey, Monkey," he said, and then,
"Morning, Jaxon." They didn't let go.
"Shove off before I trip and bust my head."
"Boys, give Shiv room to move," Dr. G said.
"Good morning, Shiv, thank you for coming."
"It's good money," Shiv said with a shrug,
because Buttons was paying him for
the part of the day he spent with Jaxon.
Dr. G was wearing one of his silly sweaters,
mostly black-and-white, but each section had
a different design, and they were divided by
narrow ribbons of red, yellow, or blue.
It was possibly the most ridiculous one
that Shiv had seen yet, but he couldn't help
trying to follow the patterns with his eyes.
Secretly he thought that he might
actually miss it if Dr. G didn't show up
wearing such outrageous sweaters.
It just kind of seemed like part of him,
the way knives were part of Shiv.
"You're smiling," Dr. G said.
"Your sweater looks like
someone attacked you with
wrapping paper and ribbons,"
Shiv said with a smirk.
"Why thank you," Dr. G said,
smoothing his hands down
the front. "I work very hard for
this effect, and a fellow likes
to have his efforts noticed."
Shiv busted up laughing.
"Doc, it could be pitch dark
and we'd notice that."
"We're just about to sit down
for breakfast," Dr. G said.
"Would you like to join us?"
"Sure," Shiv said. He had
only grabbed a snack bar
before Junket arrived.
Dr. G led everyone into
the kitchen and then said,
"Today we're having fresh fruit
and cold cereal. You may choose
from Amber Waves, Honey Bundles,
or Hooper Fruits. Who wants what?"
The boys both went for Honey Bundles,
Shiv asked for Hooper Fruits, and
Dr. G took the Amber Waves.
It was pretty good cereal too,
with a lot of real fruit flavor.
There were little bowls of
blueberries and strawberries,
and several bananas that Dr. G
sliced into fun little fans.
The boys put banana coins
between their fingers, and when
nobody got smacked for it, Shiv
picked up one and demonstrated
a coin trick, walking it over his fingers.
Nobody else could duplicate that
without breaking the banana slice, though.
After breakfast, Shiv started picking up
the dishes. "Where do you want these?"
"Put them in the sink, please,"
said Dr. G. "Someone will
wash them later today."
Shiv put them in the sink.
"Okay, what next?"
"Let's go for a walk and
burn off some energy before
we try to sit still and work,"
Dr. G said. "It's good to move."
So they walked around the block.
Shiv had no trouble, having built up
his stamina to something decent again,
but before long the boys were flagging.
"My legs are tired," Jaxon whined.
"That can happen when you walk
for a while," Dr. G said. "Do you want
a ride? I like to be asked nicely."
That was so different from
Shiv's memories of being told
to shut up and stop whining that
it made an odd flutter in his belly
that he didn't want to look at closely.
"Ride, please," Jaxon managed.
"Gladly," Dr. G said, and scooped
the toddler onto his hip. "Edison?"
"I can make it home!" the boy said,
pouring on a spurt of energy.
He was a stubborn little cuss,
Shiv would give him that.
When they reached the house,
Dr. G said, "Potty break, and then
we'll choose a cartoon to watch."
Thank fuck Dr. G was there
to deal with the boys for that.
Everyone piled onto the couch
to watch The Sankofa Train,
which Shiv hadn't seen before.
As best he could figure out,
it involved a scientist and his kids
traveling around the world and through time
in some kind of super-gizmotronic train.
When the youngest child asked,
"Why do knives have handles?"
Shiv expected the answer he'd
been given: "So that you don't
cut off your fingers, dumbass."
Instead, it sparked a trip from
a chef school to knife factories
to a hole in the ground where
a muddy woman talked about
old stone knives without handles.
When the train went way back,
everyone oohed and aahed over
fuzzy cavemen breaking rocks.
Shiv was amazed by how much
he learned from a kiddie cartoon.
He had no idea that knives went back
over two and a half million years!
"That was ... actually kind of cool,"
he admitted as the credits rolled.
"I'm glad you liked it," Dr. G said.
"Again!" Jaxon crowed, kicking
his heels against the couch.
Kids might tire out easy,
but the problem was, they
never stayed like that for long.
"We've done a fun thing, and now
it's time for a learning thing," Dr. G said.
Jaxon stuck his lip out. "Aunt Tamicka
lets me watch all the cartoons I want!"
Shiv would bet that was baloney.
"Well, she's not feeling well, so today
we are following the Finn family rules,
which alternate fun and work," Dr. G said.
"Edison, what would you like to suggest?"
"Let's do numbers!" Edison said, scrambling
off the couch. "I can bring the stuff."
He came back lugging a tub with
smaller boxes tucked inside it.
"You guys like Legos, right?"
"I have some with letters,"
Shiv said, eyeing the tub.
Edison pried the lid off.
Inside were a batch of Legos
and some bigger blocks.
"Are those too little for Jaxon?"
Shiv said, twisting his hands together.
"Let's find out," Dr. G said. He
opened a drawer and took out
a little plastic tube. "This is
a choke tester, which shows
if a toddler could swallow things."
He showed them how some of the Legos
fit into the tube, but none of the Duplos.
Then he read the ages on the boxes.
"See, Duplos are for toddlers who might
still put things in their mouth, while Legos
are for preschoolers who don't do that."
Next Dr. G turned to Jaxon. "Do you
put toys in your mouth?" he asked.
"Nooo," Jaxon said, pouting
at him. "I'm not a baby!"
"Then you may play with
either the Duplo blocks or
the Lego blocks, whichever
you prefer," Dr. G said.
"Duplos are easier to hold, but
the Legos have more numbers,"
Edison said, dumping them out.
"Now we can see all of the pieces
to compare these different sets."
Shiv quickly realized that the Duplos
had factory-printed numbers from
one to ten, while the Legos were
hand-numbered and went higher.
While Edison showed Jaxon
how to make long numbers by
sticking the Duplos together,
Dr. G did the same with Legos.
One set of the Legos had
numerals on yellow blocks,
dots on red, and words
written out on blue.
Another set had blocks of
all different colors, with
numerals on one side
dots on another, and
words on the third.
"You can use these
to measure things,"
Dr. G explained as he
stacked blocks together.
"How many Legos does it
take to measure the box lid?"
Curious, Shiv assembled Legos
until they matched the width.
"Twenty-two," he said.
It was kind of like having
a ruler that could come apart.
Shiv experimented with
putting the blocks together
and taking them apart. These
were different than his letter blocks,
but they used the same basic idea.
Meanwhile Jaxon was doing his best
to assemble the whole set of ten in
the correct order, and coming close.
"It's easier to do fractions with Legos
than with Duplos, because Legos
have more shapes," Edison said,
picking up handful of the blocks.
Shiv tensed. "Fractions are hard."
"Nah, they're easy if you can
see them, like cutting a pie,"
Edison said. "Or Legos."
He began laying out sets
of the blocks together.
"This is a two-by-eight block,
it's one whole," Edison said.
"This is a two-by-four block,
it's one half." He went on
down to a one-eighth block.
Dr. G got a piece of paper
and began writing down
what Edison was saying
to make a set of fractions.
"So if you put one quarter
on three quarters, that makes
four quarters or one whole,"
Edison said, moving the blocks.
Tentatively Shiv reached out
and began shifting the blocks,
counting out one-two-three-four,
comparing them to the whole block,
and looking at different combinations.
It almost made sense to him.
"Got it," Jaxon said, holding up
a tall stack of numbered Duplos.
Edison counted out all ten,
then threw his hands in the air
and said, "Yay, you did it!"
Dr. G said, "Very good, Jaxon,
you worked hard on that. Can you
tell which numbers are bigger?"
"I dunno," Jaxon said, frowning.
"How do you know what's more?"
"It's easy," Edison said. "I'll get
the scale." He darted away.
"Why's he going into the kitchen
instead of back to the shelves
with the toys?" Shiv asked.
"We keep the math scale in
the kitchen because it's easier
to measure equivalent amounts in
that than going back-and-forth on
the kitchen scale," Dr. G explained.
The math scale turned out to be
a yellow stand thing with two buckets,
one blue and one red, at the ends
of its arms. It also came with
square blocks in all colors.
"It goes like this," Edison said.
He set out number Duplos and
then put that many blocks in
the buckets on each side.
"More is heavier, lower."
"See, if you put two blocks
in the blue bucket and three in
the red bucket, then the red one
sinks farther," Dr. G added. "That
means three is bigger then two.
Who wants to try it next?"
Jaxon grabbed the Duplos
and starting piling up blocks.
He needed a little help to match
the numerals to the right amount
of square blocks, but he could
count dots and match up
the blocks just fine.
"Look at that," Dr. G said.
"You're a regular mathematician!"
"He is not," Shiv said. "It takes
a ton of school to do math, and
even then most people suck at it."
"That's one approach, but I don't
think it works very well, and it sounds
like you don't either," Dr. G said.
"So? It's not like I got a choice,"
Shiv said. "What else even is there?"
"This system in which a child is
constantly moving objects with
his hands and actively exercising
his senses, also takes into account
a child's special aptitude for mathematics,"
Dr. G said. "When they leave the material,
the children very easily reach the point
where they wish to write out the operation."
"That sounds crazy," Shiv said, shaking
his head. "Who thinks like that?"
"A very wise scientist named
Maria Montessori, who studied
child development and then used
that science to create a school system
which supports natural learning instead of
forcing children to do things," Dr. G said.
"We can explore some of it later if you like.
Meanwhile, do you want to try the scale?"
"I dunno," Shiv said, rocking back and forth.
"Well, ask your hands," Dr. G said. "Do they
want to play with the balance blocks, or
would they rather lie still in your lap?"
Shiv's hands never wanted to lie still,
unless he was too wrecked to move at all,
but he'd gotten slapped for that often enough
to be wary of people tricking him into it.
Grumbling, he tucked them between
his knees to keep them out of trouble.
"Maybe you don't have enough room,"
Dr. G said. "You're bigger than the boys,
after all. Shall I move to the floor?"
Shiv had seen how hard it was for
Dr. G to get up once he was down.
"Naw, Molly would skin me."
"I don't think she'd do that, but
she might scold me a little bit,"
Dr. G said. "How about we do
a circle of safety instead? Put out
your arms and see how wide they go."
Rolling his eyes, Shiv obeyed, and
so did the boys. Everyone scooted apart
until their outstretched fingertips just touched.
When Dr. G's hand brushed Shiv's, he sat
back down in a new place, just out of reach.
That actually did make Shiv feel better.
Jaxon and Edison readily let him have
a turn with the math scale and blocks.
Shiv wasn't interested in the number blocks,
he just concentrated on figuring out how many
of the square blocks would fit into the buckets.
Then Dr. G said, "Why don't you try putting
something else in one bucket? Then you can
see how many blocks you need to put in
the other bucket to make the scale even."
That turned out to be more fun than Shiv
expected, because it didn't all come out even.
Edison was an old hat at this trick, though,
and showed Shiv how to move things around
between the buckets until they came out right.
Then Shiv's stomach grumbled loudly.
"That sounds like lunchtime," Dr. G said.
"Who else is getting hungry? I am."
"Me, me!" the boys shouted.
"Okay, let's go into the kitchen,"
Dr. G said. "I'll make grilled cheese."
Shiv dragged his feet a little, trying
to work through everything that
had happened so far today.
"You okay?" Dr. G murmured.
"I'm fine," Shiv said. "It's weird, is all.
I don't know what I expected, coming here
day after day, but it wasn't ... this."
"Can you tell me why?" Dr. G said.
"I guess I thought it'd be fooling around
with cartoons or crayons all day, or else
more like preschool," Shiv said, "but it's not."
"That's true," Dr. G said. "We like to mix up
what we do to keep from getting bored."
"I seen you showing things to Jaxon,
and he's learning new stuff," Shiv said,
fiddling with the drawstring of his shorts,
"but it's not like -- it's not school."
"It's not meant to be school, it's
just meant to be a fun way to spend
the day," Dr. G said. "Little kids
learn best through playing."
"I wish," Shiv muttered.
"We can talk more about this
later, if you would like," Dr. G said.
"For now, come help me make lunch."
Shiv wound up cutting thick slices
of homemade bread while Dr. G took
several cheeses from the fridge.
"Today our choices are Comté,
Cojack, or American cheese,"
said Dr. G. "Who wants what?
Shiv, taste the Comté at least --
I think you'll like that one."
Shiv took the pale sliver and
nibbled it tentatively. "Oh, wow,"
he said. "It tastes like jazz sounds."
"Nailed it," Dr. G said happily.
"Comté comes from pastured cows,
so all the different plants they eat
give the cheese a complex flavor."
Jaxon tried it too, but wrinkled his nose.
"I want real cheese, the kind that
comes in a raincoat," he said.
"This kind?" Dr. G said, offering him
some cheap slices wrapped in plastic.
"Yeah," Jaxon said. "Your cheese is yucky."
"Hey!" Shiv said, grabbing the half-eaten bit
of Comté before Jaxon could drop it on the floor.
"Don't waste that, give it to me if you don't want it."
"It's okay if you don't like the Comté yet, Jaxon,
you can always try it again another time," said Dr. G.
"Shiv is right, though -- don't drop it, please, and
see if anyone else wants what's left of it."
"Mine," Shiv said, shoving it in his mouth.
"Okay, so you want Comté on your sandwich,
Jaxon wants American, and I'm having Cojack,"
said Dr. G. "Edison, what about you?"
"Cojack, please," said Edison. "Who's
going to butter the bread? Shiv already cut."
"I think you and Jaxon can manage buttering,
just ask Shiv if you need a hand," said Dr. G.
"I'm going to heat up the skillet now."
The boys didn't do the neatest job of
buttering the bread, but it held together
surprisingly well, and they finished quickly.
It took a few minutes to cook the sandwiches,
and it was all Shiv could do not to snatch his
straight out of the skillet, it smelled so good.
The first bite made him close his eyes in bliss,
the cheese sweet-tart and complicated.
He liked the bread too, thick and chewy
with a crunchy outside from the skillet.
"What kind of bread did you call this?"
"That's sourdough, and we make it
at home from a starter," Dr. G said,
then went to the counter to bring back
a pretty blue crock with rusty streaks.
"This is where our starter lives."
The doughy stuff inside smelled
sharp and yeasty, almost like beer.
"What are the other crocks?"
Shiv asked around a mouthful
of delicious grilled cheese.
"Well, the red-and-green one
with the leaves on its side has
some kimchee that we got from
a Korean friend," said Dr. G.
"Can anyone guess what
the next crock might be?"
"Pumpkin!" Jaxon said,
looking at the orange crock.
"Something else with leaves,"
Shiv guessed, because the lid had
some sort of leaf on top as a handle.
"It's sauerkraut, which is made from
cabbage leaves," Dr. G said. "The last
in the tall green jug is kombucha,
which is a sour fizzy drink."
"So it's kind of like color coding,"
Shiv said slowly. "The red crock
has the spicy stuff, and the leaves
match the ones with cabbage."
"Exactly!" Dr. G said with a grin.
"You're very observant."
"Why do you have so many,
though?" Shiv wondered.
"We like to cook, and we're
currently exploring whether
fermented foods help with
digestion and mood as much
as they're said to," Dr. G replied.
"I just like the taste," Edison said
as he finished his sandwich. "Well,
sourdough and sauerkraut. I don't
like the other things much yet."
"That's okay, you might grow into
liking kimchee and kombucha
some day, or not," Dr. G said.
That was a world apart from
the "Shut up and eat it!" that
Shiv had grown up hearing.
He'd learned to eat almost anything,
though, and that was a useful skill.
"Shiv, would you like some starter
to take home?" Dr. G asked. "I know
you're learning to cook, and you can make
all kinds of stuff with sourdough, not just bread."
"Like what?" Shiv said, curiosity pulling him in.
"Pancakes, waffles, muffins, biscuits --
almost anything you could make with
ordinary dough, you can also do
with sourdough," Dr. G said.
"It sounds cool, but I don't
know how, and I don't have
a nice crock to keep it in,"
Shiv said, looking down.
"First, nobody knows how
to raise sourdough until they
learn, which is pretty easy to do,"
said Dr. G. "Second, you don't
need a fancy crock. You can use
an old mayonnaise jar or a butter tub."
"Then why ..." Shiv waved a hand
at the row of gorgeous crocks. He'd
seen enough ceramics for sale at
the farmer's market to guess they
added up to a couple hundred dollars.
"We like to support local artists, we like
to look at pretty things, and we like to keep
our pets in nice habitats," Dr. G said.
"Pets?" Shiv said, confused.
"I thought those were all food."
"They are food, so maybe I should
have said 'livestock' instead of 'pets,'
but we tend to think fondly of them,"
Dr. G said. "Yeast is alive -- that's
why it grows and makes bubbles,
and you need to feed it periodically."
"Huh," Shiv said. "It's kinda cool."
"Why don't you take a starter home
in a butter tub, and then look for
a crock in your resource building?"
Dr. G said. "I bet you'll find one."
"If not there, Nick's Thrifts probably
has something I can use," Shiv said,
nibbling on his lip. "I have seen
water crocks there, you know, that
you fill with water in winter so the air
in the house doesn't dry out so much."
"Get one of those, wash it, and put
cheesecloth or a board over the top,"
Dr. G said. "I've seen people raise
sourdough in that kind of crock."
He rambled on for a while about
different crocks and yeast cultures
that he had seen people use.
Shiv kind of enjoyed listening
to Dr. G, even if it didn't make
a whole lot of sense to him.
The boys were fascinated, too.
After they finished lunch, Dr. G
got an empty tub to transfer some
of the starter, and Shiv wrote
his name on the plastic lid.
Then Dr. G described how Shiv
should take care of the starter
and where to look for recipes.
Edison even showed Shiv
how to look up recipes in
the family cookbook online.
Molly came in just as Shiv
was putting his starter
with his unused coat.
"Oh hey, it looks like you
found our micro zoo," she said.
"Your dad called them pets, but
they're supposed to be food, not
a zoo," Shiv said, frowning.
Molly chuckled. "It's okay,
I just say 'zoo' because the type
of yeast tends to be slightly different
for each starter that we make -- they
all like to eat different things."
"I didn't know that," Shiv said.
"Well, now you do," Molly said.
"I think Jaxon is a little young to enjoy
exploring a microscope, but some time
you might want to take a peek at what
our yeast beasts look like on a slide."
Shiv felt pretty sure that looking at
crawly things would kill his appetite
for sourdough, but there was no need
to say that out loud. "Maybe."
"Let's play together for a while, before
Da needs to go to work," Molly said,
leading them back to the living room.
Dr. G and Shiv were regulars,
but neither of them could be there
for the whole day. So other folks
swapped in for part of the time.
Surprisingly, Jaxon was smooth
with it. He didn't like a lot of people,
but he sure did like the Finns.
They were kind of hard to dislike.
Shiv knew. He had tried.
"What are we playing?"
Molly asked as they sat down.
"We did math this morning,"
Edison said. "Are we still, or
do we switch to something new?"
Molly grinned. "Oh, I know
just the thing to show Shiv.
What will you and Jaxon do?"
"I want to do the trinomial cube,
but it's ... maybe too high for
Jaxon to like?" Edison said.
"Get it out, and I will make
the presentation," Dr. G said.
"Jaxon may not be ready for
the abstract math you're doing,
but he loves blocks and colors, so I
think that material will appeal to him."
Edison pulled out a wooden box
with blocks of different shapes
and colors stacked inside it.
Dr. G very methodically took out
the blocks one at a time, then
rebuilt the cube on the lid.
"Now you try," he said
to Jaxon, and the boy
began trying to do what
he'd just seen Dr. G do,
moving the cube to the box.
Molly came back with her arms
full of several wooden boxes and trays.
"These were mine first, and now I love
introducing new people to them," she said.
"Jewelry?" Shiv guessed. He could feel
wires and beads through the wood.
"Good guess, but no," Molly said as
she sat down with him. "These are
counting beads. Normally each activity
would be presented one at a time, but
you're older, so I think you'll enjoy
seeing them all together like this."
Shiv sighed. "I suck at counting."
"Well, from what I've heard, I think
your teachers were idiots," Molly said.
"Got it in one," Shiv said, making
an imaginary mark in the air.
"Little kids learn better with
their hands, and touch-dominant
people do too, even as adults,"
Molly said. "I think you'll like
the beads, even if all you do is
make artsy patterns instead of
trying to do actual math."
As long as people weren't
pestering him to do math,
Shiv could fake playing with
whatever they put in front of him.
It was better than doing paperwork.
Besides, he might not actually
trust anyone, but he was learning
that none of the Finns intended
to screw him on purpose.
"Okay, show me your
bead thingies," Shiv said.
"The first set is called
the colored bead stair,"
Molly said, showing him
a bunch of beads strung
on wires of different lengths.
She set them up in a triangle, and
Shiv noticed that each bar of beads
was a different size and color.
"One-two-three--" he counted,
all the way up to nine. "Why
are they set up like that?"
Molly grinned at him.
"Because this way, you
can associate the colors
with the numbers," she said.
"One is always red. Two is
always green, and so on."
"There's no ten," Shiv pointed out.
"There is, but it's in a later set,"
Molly said. "Humor me and
work with this one a little first."
She set down a wooden tray
with a groove at the bottom
and a triangle above that.
"You can lay the beads here
and they'll stay put, even if
you bump into them a bit."
Shiv had always adored
moving objects with his hands,
but it had also gotten him in trouble.
He knew that Molly wanted him
to handle the things, and his fingers
positively itched for the shiny wires
and beads, but he was still afraid.
"Problem?" Molly asked gently.
Shiv bit his lip, hard enough
to taste blood. "They're for babies."
Just as Dr. G had, Molly got out
that tube thing and dropped
some of the beads into it.
"Nope, definitely not for babies,"
she said firmly. "These are
only for people old enough
to know what's safe to put
in your mouth or not."
"I dunno ..." Shiv said.
"Maybe it'll help if I lay out
the scale for you," Molly said.
"Babies need totally safe toys.
Toddlers can start using things
that require just a little care,
such as hard wooden blocks."
"Lego caltrops," Shiv giggled,
looking at the tub on the shelf.
"Exactly," Molly said. "If you
don't take care of your Legos,
someone could bruise their foot.
Older children can play with things
that might break if handled carelessly.
It's important to introduce risk so that
they can learn to use tools like knives."
"I cut the bread for lunch, and then
Edison and Jaxon buttered it," Shiv said.
"That's a great division of labor,"
Molly said. "Kids can't learn skills
like that unless adults are willing
to let them have, say, a butter knife
and then later on a fruit knife."
Shiv had to learn that on his own,
because nobody would ever
let him have a sharp knife or
anything else the least bit risky.
"So these beads ..." Shiv said,
tucking his hands under his butt.
"Are for folks old enough to use them
responsibly," Molly said. "Care to guess
when was the last time I used them?"
"When you were little," Shiv said.
"Nope," Molly said, quirking a smile.
"When I started studying to become
a paramedic, I had to learn how to use
my head and my hands at the same time.
That was really hard. I kept fumbling
drug dosages. So I sat down with
my old friends, the counting beads,
and worked out the equations like this
until I could do that math in my head."
"Huh," Shiv said. "I didn't know that
grownups could use their hands for math.
I always got smacked for it because
everyone said only babies did that,
and it'd make me stupid, but I
wound up stupid anyway."
"I don't think you're stupid, I
think you had crummy teachers,"
Molly said. "That's not your fault."
"I would love to hear names, Shiv,
any time you care to share some,"
Dr. G said in a carefully even tone.
Shiv wasn't a rat, but he was
tempted to set Dr. G on them.
To distract himself, he asked Molly,
"Show me these things again?"
She showed him how the beads
stacked into a pyramid, then said,
"Since you already know how to count,
why not try doing this with your superpower?"
That turned out to be fun. Shiv could
easily feel the wires and the glass beads
with his ability and fit them onto the board.
Next Molly opened a big square box.
Inside lay handfuls of bead bars in
all the familiar colors, plus a new one.
"Ten is gold?" Shiv said, grabbing
one of the bars to look at it closer.
The gold beads sparkled in the light.
"Well done," Molly said. "Ten is gold.
Put that with the colored beads, and
you can count the teens. We have
a special tray for that activity."
She showed him a piece of wood
that had both a square and a triangle
above a long groove at the bottom.
Without further prompting, Shiv
filled in the triangle with bead bars.
He puzzled over the square briefly,
then said, "Aha! The tens go here."
"Yes, they do," Molly said. "Go on
and fill in the rest of the set. Then
you can count them all together."
It was silly. He knew how to count.
But Shiv couldn't resist running
his fingers over the bumps and
saying the words out loud.
Molly looked thrilled.
She was easily amused,
as Dr. G sometimes put it.
"So what else can you do
with stuff like this?" Shiv asked.
"There's a way to lay out all these beads
in a big pattern," Molly said, "but around here,
mostly we use them for counting things, working
out math problems, or just playing games."
"What kind of games?" Shiv wondered.
"One of my favorites is the snake game,"
Molly said. "You lay out the color bars in
a random squiggle, then count the beads."
She showed him how. "When you reach
ten, replace that part with a gold bar."
Shiv watched her change the beads.
"That's kind of pretty," he said.
"I like it because it feels ... finished,
in my head," Molly explained.
"Okay, I get that," Shiv said.
"Moving up to bigger numbers,
there are chains and squares,"
Molly said, showing him a new set.
She stretched out chains of each color
and put the matching square at the end.
Then she gathered the squares and
stacked them into a pyramid.
"They're not all the same length,"
Shiv said, looking at the chains.
"That's because they show you
the squares," Molly said. "Look,
there are two twos, and three threes.
If you fold the chain at the joint, then
each one will make a square, just like
the bead squares over here."
"Huh," Shiv said. He picked up
the yellow chain and carefully bent it
into a zig-zag sort of square shape.
"That's it," Molly said. "Four fours
make a square, that's sixteen. Making
squares is useful for many projects, like
sewing a quilt or tiling a floor. Can you
think of something that uses pyramids?"
Shiv thought a moment. "Stacking socks,"
he said, "or produce at the farmer's market."
"Exactly," Molly said. "If you connect
what you're learning to ways you can
use it, then it sticks a lot better."
"Yeah," Shiv said, picking up
a longer chain of beads and
running it through his hands.
"Go ahead, give your body
a chance to learn the numbers
this way," Molly encouraged.
The feeling of the chain in
his fingers made Shiv smile, and
he could sense the extra strips that
held the solid squares together.
"I like these things," he said.
Molly smiled. "I hoped that
you would," she said. "Do you
want to see some more?"
"What else is there?" Shiv said.
"We've done the numbers."
"Look at the ten bars," she said.
"There's a whole other set of stuff
using the golden beads to show
places and powers of ten."
She brought out more boxes.
The smallest held single beads.
Another held the ten bars and
a matching slat where you could
put nine of the golden beads.
Then there was a chain of ten tens
and a matching hundred square.
Molly slowly poured a long, long chain
into Shiv's hands. "That's a thousand,"
she said, "and so is this." She showed
him a solid cube of golden beads.
"How do you know?" he said.
"Because that's always how many
you get with this stack of golden beads,"
Molly said. "We could count them."
Shiv shook his head. "I don't
want to count to a thousand."
He probably couldn't get that far
without making a mistake, and
that would be embarrassing.
"You don't need to," Molly said.
"Look, a gold bar is ten, right?"
"That's what you said," Shiv replied.
"So the width is ten, the length is ten,
and the height is ten," Molly said, pointing.
"Width by length is ten tens, that's a hundred.
There are ten layers, so that's a thousand."
As she spoke, she used a pointer
to mark off the golden beads.
Shiv ran his fingers over the cube.
"Yeah, okay," he said. "It's a thousand."
"So anyway, that's the basic set
of beads," Molly said. "There are
other tools that go with them, and lots
of things you can do, but I figured you
would just like the look and feel of these."
"They're really something," Shiv said.
"You think they're still good at my age?"
"They're good for anyone who needs
to make math more concrete," Molly said.
"They may help you get the hang of numbers
better than a calculator just printing the answer."
He couldn't help wondering if something like this
might make it easier for him to understand
the budgeting and bookkeeping stuff
Dymin was trying to teach him.
The wires were so shiny,
the ends sharp where they had
been cut and rolled into loops.
The beads were glass with
a foil tube lining the center
to make them even shinier.
Then Shiv noticed something.
"This one's broken," he said,
picking up one of the ten bars.
"You should throw it away."
"It's not broken, it's just bent,"
Molly said with a surprising smile.
"We keep this one, despite that,
because it's important."
"Why?" Shiv said. "You're rich,
you could just buy new ones."
"Because these tools can bend,
or even break," Molly said. "This is
one that I bent when I was little, before
I learned how to be careful with things.
This is how I learned that lesson. I
broke a few, too -- beads everywhere."
"And you didn't get in trouble?" Shiv said,
rolling his lower lip between his teeth.
"No, because I was just starting to learn
how to handle small things that are
a bit fragile. Of course I broke some,"
Molly said. "Now I don't, but I can tell
that story to new people while they
are learning how to use the beads."
Shiv had a hard time imagining breaking
something and not getting in trouble for it.
That was how he had come up with
his door routine in the first place.
He hovered a finger just above
the damaged bar. He could feel
the bend in the wire. "So you
don't want me to fix it?"
"Please don't," Molly said.
"We appreciate the offer, but
we like the bend where it is.
It teaches people to be gentle."
Shiv struggled to wrap his mind
around the idea that a damaged toy
could be valued so much that people
wouldn't want it fixed, even though
Shiv could make it as good as new.
"Can we borrow some colored beads
for a while?" Edison asked as he came
over to their spot. "Jaxon wants to see
how the numbers go with these blocks."
"Sure, we have plenty to spare," Molly said,
waving a hand at the various boxes. Then
she turned to Shiv. "That's why we have
full sets, even for use at home, so that
several people can use these without
getting in each other's way. We always
had friends over playing with us."
Shiv had grown up in crowded houses,
but trying to imagine having so many friends
that they needed extra supplies ... just
made his brain bend out of shape.
Jaxon had been playing with
the cube thingie like it was
a regular set of blocks for
a while, but now he was
watching Edison take it
apart in the same steps
that Dr. G used earlier.
Edison set out the pieces
in a pattern, then added
number bars along the side,
talking a mile a minute about math
that was way over Shiv's head.
Jaxon was paying attention like
it made some kind of sense to him,
even though he was only three.
"How is he even doing that?"
Shiv muttered with a scowl.
"Jaxon's hands have been
learning the blocks," Dr. G said,
scooting over closer to them.
"Now he wants to hear more
about the numbers that go
with them. He probably won't
be able to do this himself for
a while, but he likes watching."
Maybe the stupid toys had
made a difference, after all.
If they had, if this was real ...
Restless, Shiv poured
the hundred chain through
his fingers, trying to settle
himself so he wouldn't keep
thinking of his own past.
The more he tried to push it
down, though, the more it
bubbled up in his brain.
Shiv shoved the golden chain
at Molly. "Scuseme," he choked,
and ran out of the living room.
He stumbled into the bathroom,
shoving the door so hard that it
bounced instead of latching.
Shiv slid down the wall,
shaking with unnamed stress,
until his butt hit the floor and
he pulled his knees up to clutch.
The wall in the back of his head
wavered, and when he pushed on it
to shore it up, it made an ugly sound
like rubbing against a balloon.
Shiv rocked back and forth,
bumping his spine against
the hard wall of the bathroom.
It helped ground him, a little.
A gentle tap on the doorframe
startled him, making him jerk up.
"Are you okay?" Dr. G asked,
not coming into the room.
Mutely Shiv shook his head.
"I'm sorry to hear that,"
said Dr. G. "I know you're
not much of a talker, especially
when you're upset. May I just
sit with you? We don't have
to talk unless you want to."
"Okay," Shiv said, his voice
cracking halfway through the word.
Dr. G slipped into the room,
closed the door behind him,
and offered Shiv a pillow.
Shiv grabbed it and stuffed it
behind him. At least it was
more comfortable than the wall,
and he didn't really need bruises.
"May I sit down?" Dr. G asked,
waving a hand at the can.
Shiv nodded, then pressed
his face against his knees.
Everything felt like too much.
He struggled in silence for
long minutes, trying to get
his heaving emotions under
some kind of control, but
it just wasn't working.
When Shiv came up for air,
his breath caught in a sob.
Sniffling, he wiped his nose
with his hand. He wasn't
wearing long sleeves.
Silently, a tissue appeared
right in front of Shiv.
He snatched it and blew
his nose noisily, then
tossed it at the trash can.
Just as silently, the box
of tissues settled on his knee,
decorated with cartoon geese.
It took more than a few tissues,
but eventually Shiv managed
to stop not-quite crying.
"Fuck," he muttered.
"Mmm," Dr. G said,
offering wordless support.
"I know it's stupid, okay?"
Shiv snapped. "It's over,
it's in the past, I should just
get the fuck over it and
go on with my life."
"If it were over, then it
wouldn't still be hurting you,"
Dr. G said gently. "This looks
like something is lingering."
Shiv mashed his hands
against his eyeballs and
tried to blot out the world.
"Fuck," he said again.
"It's okay to vent if you
feel a need," Dr. G said.
"The door is thick enough
so people might hear sound
but shouldn't hear words."
That was reassuring.
"It's not that I hate Jaxon,"
Shiv said. "He's okay,
for a kid. It's just -- I feel
so jealous, I could scream."
"There are places for that,
if you need it," Dr. G said.
Shiv sighed. He really didn't
want to lose that much control.
"No?" Dr. G said. "That's fine.
I wonder what kind of things
make you feel jealous, though."
"Seeing Jaxon with the toys,
all the pretty pieces," Shiv said.
"Then you and Molly just explain
everything so makes sense, and --"
His voice ground to a halt, like
a car running out of gas on the road.
"I'm listening," Dr. G assured him.
"I want what he has," Shiv whispered.
"Of course you do," Dr. G said.
"Everyone needs to be taught what
they want to know, treated gently,
and given opportunities to explore
new and interesting things."
"But I'm jealous, and that's
bad," Shiv protested.
"Emotions aren't good or bad,
Shiv, they just are," Dr. G said.
"If anyone told you that some of
your feelings weren't okay to have,
then they were lying to you."
Shiv snorted. He knew damn well
that people never wanted him to get
jealous or angry or a lot of other things.
"All feelings are valid," Dr. G went on.
"Jealousy is a perfectly natural reaction
when your needs aren't getting met
and you see someone else's are."
"Yeah," Shiv said. "That's it."
He'd spent most of his life with
his nose pressed to a window,
wanting things he couldn't have.
"When you were Jaxon's age,
you needed adults to help you, but
they didn't. You needed toys and
lessons that played to your strengths,
but you didn't get any," Dr. G said.
"I bet that felt awful, didn't it?"
"It fucking sucked," Shiv grated.
"So you can be sad and angry about
that. You have every right," Dr. G said.
"You don't need to be jealous of Jaxon
right now, though, because you can
have the same things he has."
"He doesn't hate school yet,
and I do," Shiv pointed out.
"So? This isn't school, it's play
that helps you learn," Dr. G said.
"What if I don't want to do that?"
Shiv said, although the jealousy
was still eating him up inside.
"Then you don't have to," Dr. G said.
"You should have gotten a good education,
but people shortchanged you. That doesn't
give anyone a right to dictate your life now.
You're a legal adult; it is your choice what,
if anything, you would like to learn."
Shiv huffed. "Boss White still wants
me to learn paperwork," he said.
"Well, as long as you choose to work
for him, that gives him some right to tell
you what to do," Dr. G said. "Based on
what I saw today, I think you might find it
easier to learn those skills with something
in your hands to represent the numbers."
Shiv thought longingly of the beads
and how they might make learning
a budget easier. "Yeah, maybe."
"It's up to you, then," Dr. G said.
Shiv struggled to figure out
what he wanted to do, but it
was all just a tangled mess
in his head, like his whole life.
Restless, he bounced against
the pillow that cushioned his back
against the hard wall behind him.
Dr. G watched for a few minutes,
then said, "Would you like to tell
me what's bothering you, Shiv?
Maybe I could help with it."
"Why couldn't people explain
things so they made sense?"
Shiv wailed. "I tried and tried,
and all they did was make me
feel stupid for doing it all wrong!
I thought it was just you, because
you make everything better, but
it's not. Molly can do it too."
His nose started running again,
damn it. Shiv grabbed a tissue
and cleaned his face with
quick, angry swipes.
"Why couldn't I have
nice things like this stuff?"
Shiv went on, forcing the words
out through a throat that tried
to close itself around them.
"They're so pretty, and I
think they woulda helped."
"Are you just venting, or
would you like answers?"
Dr. G asked gently.
Shiv had to clear
his throat before he
could say, "Answers."
"Well, there are several
that I can think of," Dr. G said.
"First, most people don't know
how to teach this way, or use
these materials. It's based on
actual science, not politics or
convenience like public schools."
"Oh," Shiv said. "But it didn't
look like rocket science."
He'd seen Halley and even
Edison doing things that Shiv
couldn't begin to follow.
This was a lot simpler.
Wasn't it?
"When you use
a butterfly knife,
does it look hard,
or easy?" Dr. G said.
"It's a lot harder than
it looks," Shiv said. "You
have to be real careful,
especially with a double,
or else you'll cut yourself."
"Exactly," Dr. G said. "It's not
actually easy, but your skill
makes it look that way."
"Okay ... I kinda get that,"
Shiv said. "But what's so hard
about teaching the toys?"
"Each one has its own pattern
of presentation," Dr. G said.
"I'm not a Montessori teacher,
but I learned some of the methods.
They're very particular, like how
you do a science experiment
exactly the same each time."
"Huh," Shiv said. "I guess
that would be pretty hard.
But it makes easy listening."
"That's the idea," Dr. G said.
"The teacher's job is just to make it
easy for kids to learn. They're already
primed to do that -- it's instinctive."
"Then why didn't teachers just do
things the right way?" Shiv said.
"The second reason is resources,"
Dr. G said. "Poor schools can't afford
nicer tools and toys. They have a hard time
getting good teachers. The same is true for
schools in ethnic neighborhoods. I think that
one reason you had difficulty was because you
went to bad schools that just didn't have
the kind of supports you needed."
"Yeah," Shiv said with a sigh.
"Some didn't have enough books, or
desks, or stuff was old and falling apart.
Nobody had time for me when I was always
behind in class or making trouble or whatever."
"Well, that's what happens when kids don't
get their needs met," Dr. G said. "They can't
learn, which upsets them, and then they act out.
That's just the educational side, not even counting
the fact that you needed extra help to heal from
the neglect and abuse you suffered earlier."
"They just said it was my fault and
that I was bad," Shiv said glumly.
"That was wrong. They shouldn't
have said those things," Dr. G replied.
"This brings us to a third reason."
"What's that?" Shiv said, looking up.
"To put it in your terms," Dr. G said,
some people are just assholes."
Shiv snorted a laugh. "No shit."
"They enjoy using their power
to push people around, and they
like hurting others," Dr. G said.
"Children make attractive victims
since it's hard for them to fight back."
"Kids are anyone's meat," Shiv said.
"As long as you don't piss off anyone
who matters, you can do what you want."
"That's what gets a bully's attention,"
Dr. G said. "Some people just don't
care if they hurt others, or else they
go out of their way to do that."
"People like me," Shiv said.
"Let's unpack that a little more,"
Dr. G said. "You're rude more often
than not, but that's a combination of
how you grew up and your personality.
You're learning other options now."
"I guess," Shiv said, shrugging.
"But everyone knows I'm a jerk."
"You do have a rough sense of humor,
and you're a sadomasochist. You like
giving and receiving certain specific kinds
of pain," Dr. G said. "You don't seem inclined
to hurt people at random, though, and you're
getting along better now that you have
halfway-decent people around you."
"Maybe," Shiv said. "But I'm still
a fuckup. That hasn't changed."
"What makes you feel that?" Dr. G said.
"I wish I could just play the way
Jaxon does," Shiv whispered.
"It was fun for a while, but then ...
I'm so screwed up, my head
is a total mess inside."
"I'm sorry that things got
so tense, Shiv," said Dr. G.
"Today was meant to be fun,
instead of stressful."
"Not your fault, doc,"
Shiv said with a shrug.
"You didn't screw me over."
"I know, but I still regret that
it happened," Dr. G said, and
there was that spark again,
like he wanted to hurt someone
for messing around with Shiv.
Boss White looked like that sometimes.
Shiv fidgeted in place. "School records
are public," he said, not looking up.
"That's true, but you've had
too many people trampling over
your boundaries -- especially after
the incident with Halley," said Dr. G.
"I might wish, but I won't look at
any more of your records without
your explicit consent, Shiv."
It was scary, but it was
also incredibly tempting.
Shiv felt that there wasn't
quite enough air in the room,
panting like he'd run a race.
"Sit up a little, please, and
give your lungs some space,"
Dr. G said. "Slow, deep breaths."
Shiv tried to follow along, but
it was hard to obey the directions.
Gradually it helped, though.
If he told Dr. G where to look,
then all the crap would come
tumbling out of the closets, but
it wouldn't technically be ratting
if Shiv didn't name names.
"Elliott Elementary, Madison ...
Culler Middle School, Elba Secondary,
Lincoln High, Central High," Shiv gasped.
"Others. Can't remember 'em all."
"That's okay," Dr. G assured him.
"I don't need you to remember them.
All I need is your permission to look
for the people who hurt you."
Shiv's tongue was stuck
to the roof of his mouth.
Unsticking it made him cough.
Dr. G was right there with
a bottle of water that he
had gotten somewhere.
Shiv grabbed it and
sucked down half of it,
coughing and sputtering.
"Do it," he said, staring
at the floor beneath him.
"Okay," said Dr. G. "That's
all I need, Shiv. Thank you."
Shiv nodded, pressing
the cool bottle against
his heated cheeks.
"That was a hard thing,
telling me about the schools
and coping with such big feelings,"
Dr. G said. "It's very brave of you.
I'm glad that you could tell me."
The words soaked in like
water into dry ground,
making Shiv feel as if
he would float away.
He couldn't quite seem
to find his body right now.
Dr. G kept talking, though,
his voice low and rumbly,
sometimes in English and
other times something else.
Shiv didn't mind. It all just
blurred into a familiar murmur,
like a television in another room.
Slowly he felt less panicky
and started to feel his skin
and bones more. By the time
he finished the bottle of water,
Shiv felt almost human again.
"Doing a little better?" Dr. G said.
"Yeah, some," Shiv said, tossing
the empty bottle into the trash can.
"Are you ready to wash your face and
go back to the living room?" Dr. G said.
"Or do you need to go home early?"
"I'm fine," Shiv said as he went
to splash water on his face.
Maybe if he used enough,
nobody would notice that
his nose had been running.
"That's good," Dr. G said.
"I have to leave shortly for
my afternoon appointments, but
if you need me, send a message and
I'll get back to you as soon as I can."
"Okay," Shiv said as he opened
the door of the bathroom.
Nobody made a fuss when
they rejoined the group.
Dr. G said goodbye to
everyone, then headed
off to meet his clients.
Shiv looked around
the living room. All of
the beads and blocks were
put away, but something else
had taken their place.
It looked like an easel,
except one side was beaded
and the other was a chalkboard.
Messy math equations started
at the top, and down the side
it read, Peace Paco Pax ...
and more words that Shiv
couldn't even figure out.
Below that were scribbles,
probably from Jaxon.
The boys themselves were
curled up on the couch, wrapped
in Edison's Microfyne blanket, while
cartoon swans ice-skated on the screen.
Shiv lifted a hand toward the easel,
then dropped it back to his side.
"It's okay if you want to use that,"
Molly said. "The boys are done."
"Mmm?" Shiv said, looking at them.
"Jaxon wanted to see the numbers
for the trinomial cube, so Edison
showed him," she explained.
"So that's what those are,"
Shiv said. "And then what?"
"Then things got a little tense,
so we talked about maintaining
our relationship bank accounts and
tried writing out a peaceful mantra,"
Molly said. "Eventually they decided
watching some Tranquil Toons would
help, so that's where we're at now."
"Relationship ... bank accounts?"
Shiv said, goggling at the idea.
"Sure," Molly said. "Come around
to this side and I'll show you."
Shiv flicked the big wooden beads
back and forth. "A scoreboard?"
"It can be," Molly said. "This is called
an abacus, and you can use it like
a scoreboard, or like a calculator."
She split the top row of beads in half.
"Now if I do something for you ..." She
flicked one bead to the right. "... and you
do something for me, it stays in balance."
Then she pushed all the beads together.
"But if one person does all the work,
then it's unbalanced, which feels bad."
A light went on in Shiv's brain.
"Oh! It's like trading favors."
"Pretty much," Molly said.
"We were talking about why
Buttons can get antsy when
we offer to do things for her."
"She needs to do things back,"
Shiv said at once. "Sometimes,
people do things just because
they want you in their debt."
"That's okay," Molly said.
"We can always use
another scientist here!"
"I think she'd like that,"
Shiv said softly. "I mean,
she's the best button woman
ever, but it's not her real thing,
you know? It just a job that
she could actually get."
"I understand," Molly said.
"Maybe we'll ask her to give
Edison a science lesson. He's
run through all the local scientists."
She snickered. "Maybe then Buttons
will see why loaning Jaxon to us
is such a big favor here."
Shiv was starting to realize
that maybe it was as hard being
way smarter than everyone else
as it was being way dumber.
He looked at the two boys
cuddled together on the couch,
as trusting as puppies.
"Yeah," he whispered.
"That'd be a good thing."
"They look comfy, don't they?"
Molly said. "Shall we join them?"
Shiv glanced at the screen,
where the swans had been
replaced by dancing giraffes.
Suddenly he just wanted
to sprawl out and not feel
anything for a while.
"Uh huh," Shiv said,
leaning a little closer.
Molly sat down in
the loveseat and patted
the cushion beside her.
"You want company, or
space?" She waved
at a nearby chair.
Shiv eyed the spot
next to her. That was
a lot of trust to ask, yeah,
but ... he didn't really feel
like sitting alone right now.
An elephant appeared
on the television and began
blowing cool jazz through his trunk.
A monkey joined the elephant,
strumming her tail like a bass.
Shiv sidled into place next to Molly,
trying not to jostle her too much. She
just smiled and made room for him.
It felt, maybe, a little bit like home.
* * *
Notes:
This poem is long, so its notes appear in a separate post.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-29 06:14 am (UTC)I want to learn some Montessori methodology, whether or not I have the opportunity to implement it anytime soon. If I can add that to my toolkit, that will be a good resource to draw on later.
This is a huge, huge, HUGE set of steps forward for Shiv. Maybe it's because I'm *so* focused on schooling and 'academic' subjects, but this feels like as much of a turning point as the artwork he did early on in red, white, black, etc. Maybe more when you add up all the metrics he just jumped forward on. Actually trying math toys and liking them and being able to use them. Letting himself feel how awful it was that he'd been told he was stupid instead of being *taught*. Expressing that to Dr. G! Processing jealousy and moving forward.Choosing to trust Dr. G. with the information about his 'schools'. Voluntarily *relaxing* *with* Molly and in the presence of Edison and Jaxon. This is light-years from where Shiv *was*, and every step of it - to me - is believable.
<3 <3 <3
You're welcome!
Date: 2018-07-29 06:57 am (UTC)*bow, flourish* Happy to be of service.
>> I want to learn some Montessori methodology, whether or not I have the opportunity to implement it anytime soon. If I can add that to my toolkit, that will be a good resource to draw on later. <<
One good starting point would be learning the principles of Montessori method. Once you know those -- and most of them are obvious, even if not widely used -- then you can apply them in many ways. Here is an introduction to Montessori method so you can see them in action.
However, if you really want to learn to teach this stuff in a school context, consider digging into the hardcore science behind it. Maria Montessori was a physician with a keen interest in child development, and that's what shaped her school system -- an awareness of how children's bodies, brains, and therefore minds actually grow.
http://www.montessori-science.org/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41539-017-0012-7
There are many resources on this topic. You can probably absorb much of it just by reading about it and studying the student materials. But if you want to learn the nitty-gritty of teaching it -- the particular exactitude of presentation that makes Montessori so impressive -- then you might need to take actual classes.
>> This is a huge, huge, HUGE set of steps forward for Shiv. <<
It really is. :D
>> Maybe it's because I'm *so* focused on schooling and 'academic' subjects, but this feels like as much of a turning point as the artwork he did early on in red, white, black, etc. <<
It is.
>> Maybe more when you add up all the metrics he just jumped forward on. <<
Well, it's punctuated equilibrium, which is common in therapy. Shiv has been working with Dr. G for months now, even if Shiv doesn't recognize it as "work." It's still influencing him in positive ways. Also, unlike local-America where therapy is very isolated, Terramagne-America offers more options. This allows Dr. G to model healthy family life and fun education, not just lecture about it. After nearly a year of encouragement, Shiv has started to come out of his shell. So every once in a while, he makes a big leap like this. \o/
>> Actually trying math toys and liking them and being able to use them. <<
Ironically, that could have happened at almost any time in the last 20 years. Given his tactile orientation, Shiv was always going to latch onto math manipulatives as soon as someone offered them when he was open to the idea. The problem is, after being smacked around for years, Shiv spends most of the time with his armor on. However, he's starting to open up with the Finns a little bit. Combine that peekaboo with something that is magnetically attractive to him, and it's enough to make the connection.
>> Letting himself feel how awful it was that he'd been told he was stupid instead of being *taught*. Expressing that to Dr. G! <<
Yeah, Shiv has also spent most of his life trying to shove his feelings down the basement stairs because showing them gets him in trouble with mainstream people. >_< But the thing about therapy is it tends to stir up stuff. If your therapist is good, this is a good thing. Until recently, Shiv's therapists have been awful, so he resists the process, hence Dr. G focusing on trust-building exercises. They have literally been working on that first for most of a year. Other than establishing rapport, they've just dealt with individual issues as things have popped up, instead of trying to follow a strict plan. So now that some of the darker stuff is really beginning to bubble up, when Shiv starts to flail, he's more willing to give Dr. G a chance to help, because he can't readily pull himself out of these meltdowns.
>> Processing jealousy and moving forward.<<
It's going to take a long time to work through all that crap, because it was a long time building up. But the most important things are acknowledging that it was wrong for people to shortchange Shiv, and reminding him that he is not now being treated the same way but can actually meet his needs. Mostly it's just going to require a lot of repetition of those factors.
>> Choosing to trust Dr. G. with the information about his 'schools'. <<
Yep.
>> Voluntarily *relaxing* *with* Molly and in the presence of Edison and Jaxon. <<
Shiv actually has social and even sensual aspects. They're just shoved off in an odd closet of his life due to years of abuse. By this point, he has seen that 1) the Finns won't let preschoolers maul him, and 2) Aida typically 'cuddles' by sitting next to someone or draping an ankle over them, which is about as snuggly as Shiv gets most of the time. So he's just starting to explore whether this kind of contact will in fact feel good to him.
>> This is light-years from where Shiv *was*, and every step of it - to me - is believable.
<3 <3 <3 <<
Yaaayyy! I'm so happy to hear that.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-29 07:12 am (UTC)Good luck getting some of the Montessori into your teaching! I think you'll be awesome at it.
Yes ...
Date: 2018-07-29 07:24 am (UTC)Currently he has:
Qualities: Good (+2) Ambidexterity, Good (+2) Crafty, Good (+2) Hoodlum, Good (+2) Recovering from Injuries, Good (+2) Streetwise, Good (+2) Fast
Poor (-2) Can't Keep His Mouth Shut
The challenge I'm having is that he isn't really "good" at things like Trauma Survivor or Coping Skills yet, he's just digging himself out of a very deep hole. Much the same is true of Family Ties and Social Skills. He's close to leveling up on Hoodlum when he becomes a lieutenant, but that's not where he's making a leap now. Thoughts?
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-07-29 07:35 am (UTC)Of course, it doesn't hurt _at all_ that the Finns are at least +4 on `Ohana Skills...
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-07-29 07:43 am (UTC)If levels up that, it turns Average, and he'll need a new Poor (-2) Weakness. What would you say is currently his worst trait? That doesn't conflict with some other part of his character sheet.
>> Of course, it doesn't hurt _at all_ that the Finns are at least +4 on `Ohana Skills... <<
That gives me an idea, though. What about Good (+2) Personal Growth for Shiv?
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-07-29 03:50 pm (UTC)--Jessica
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-07-29 04:04 pm (UTC)Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-07-30 04:31 am (UTC)The way I handle this, a character who works hard to overcome a Weakness can change the Poor quality to Average, then replace it with a new Weakness to reflect current challenges.
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-07-30 05:36 am (UTC)Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-07-29 04:20 pm (UTC)Maybe Poor Default Brain Tape Messages? I mean, we can see it in this poem too, I think. He's getting much better at applying healthy coping mechanisms (leaving the room when he realises he's jealous and not coping well with his feelings), but he's also still telling himself that he is bad for even having feelings and grabbing for the old brain tape first.
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-07-29 07:40 am (UTC)I _know_ I've mastered (+1 or maybe even +2) Healing Roleplay... and that thanks to my own `ohana... my beloved N taught me that one, mostly by example...
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-07-29 07:45 am (UTC)My current favorite game engine is PDQ, of which I'm using the Truth & Justice version for Terramagne. You can learn it and teach it in a few minutes.
*chuckle* When I was in high school, my friends decided they wanted to roleplay in my main fantasy world, Hallelaine. Which is how I became a game master before I knew which dice to roll.
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-07-29 04:06 pm (UTC)Try this ...
Date: 2018-07-30 02:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-29 07:18 am (UTC)it happened," Dr. G said, and
there was that spark again,
like he wanted to hurt someone
for messing around with Shiv.
Boss White looked like that sometimes.
Oh, G-ddess, do I know that _spark_... it me. It's not wise to mess with one of Mama Bear's cubs. Five of her six ends are POINTY when she does that.
Yes ...
Date: 2018-07-29 07:52 am (UTC)Reality tunnel, meet wrecking ball.
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2018-07-30 06:05 pm (UTC)"You had a child here. His name was Egon."
"I'm sorry, we can't discuss..."
"We are not going to discuss anything. You are going to listen. You knew this about him and yet you..."
One self-righteous jackass, dismantled with surgical precision.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-29 10:18 am (UTC)ETA: Metal beads, with the ones, tens, hundreds, etc. made of different metals.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-29 11:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-29 04:07 pm (UTC)And Shiv gave Dr G permission to look up his former schools. I admit I wasn't expecting to see the explicit consent in this poem, but him just saying "You could look this up" made me happy with glee, the precious feral kitty. <3
Also I wish we'd had those maths tools at my school. I can almost see how maths would make more sense to me using them.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-30 03:38 am (UTC)• 1100 "To put it in your terms," Dr. G said,
> dump the line #
Thank you!
Date: 2018-07-30 03:47 am (UTC)Sooth.
> • 1100 "To put it in your terms," Dr. G said,
> dump the line #
Fixed.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-30 04:03 pm (UTC)I thought it was good and interesting that there's no shame applied to wanting the processed cheese just as there's no shame in wanting the fancy complex cheese.
>>but he was learning
that none of the Finns intended
to screw him on purpose.<<
...that's HUGE. Even trusting that someone isn't malicious is trust. Feeling secure in the knowledge that they're actively trying /not/ to hurt, not just /not trying to hurt,/ is another big jump, but it's a pleasure seeing him get this far.
>>"I wish I could just play the way
Jaxon does," Shiv whispered.<<
Oh ow.
I'm glad he has the chance to do what he's doing here. I hope he gets as far as he wants.
Thoughts
Date: 2018-07-31 12:57 am (UTC)Shiv actually has a sensitive palate when he gets a chance to use it. His ability to eat darn near anything is a learned skill. So now that he's hanging around with the Finns and Pain's Gray, he's encountering better ingredients and learning to use them. You can bet he'll remember that Comte, even if he can't often afford to buy it for himself.
>> I thought it was good and interesting that there's no shame applied to wanting the processed cheese just as there's no shame in wanting the fancy complex cheese.<<
Yep. The Finns don't mind which preference people have. A majority of what they eat is healthy food, but they do keep a few staple "junk" items because some kids gravitate to those and/or they have specific uses. They probably have a block of Velveeta around somewhere, because it's such a great melting cheese.
>>but he was learning
that none of the Finns intended
to screw him on purpose.<<
...that's HUGE. <<
Yes it is.
>> Even trusting that someone isn't malicious is trust. Feeling secure in the knowledge that they're actively trying /not/ to hurt, not just /not trying to hurt,/ is another big jump, but it's a pleasure seeing him get this far. <<
There are many kinds of trust. Among the earlier ones that Shiv discovered was "Ambrose is too much of a pussy to steal things." That's actually characterological trust rather than instrumental trust. Shiv is slowly learning that the Finns can be relied upon, which is something he can think through, even if he can't really feel it most of the time. When he's panicky, though -- especially when regressed -- he's starting to reach out to them for comfort. That's a good thing.
>>"I wish I could just play the way
Jaxon does," Shiv whispered.<<
Oh ow. <<
Yyyyeah.
>> I'm glad he has the chance to do what he's doing here. I hope he gets as far as he wants. <<
Well, what Shiv wants and what he can actually accomplish or tolerate aren't always in the same place. His recovery is erratic. He is making a lot of progress, though. He'll get there eventually. At least he's past the point of rejecting outright everything that's designed for younger users. He's starting to learn that a lot of that stuff has bright colors and interesting textures that appeal to him.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-07-30 07:53 pm (UTC)Oh, my. Enormous steps!
Wow.
(Erm, and I have to say, I'm rather looking forward to seeing what happens now Dr. G has permission to dig into Shiv's past and eviscerate ... umm, I mean find those who screwed him over so badly as a child.)
Thoughts
Date: 2018-07-30 08:14 pm (UTC)Oh, my. Enormous steps!
Wow. <<
:D Shiv is making great progress.
>> (Erm, and I have to say, I'm rather looking forward to seeing what happens now Dr. G has permission to dig into Shiv's past and eviscerate ... umm, I mean find those who screwed him over so badly as a child.) <<
I imagine a lot of people will wind up getting fired, and some will land in court for child abuse. Feel free to ask for that in any relevant prompt call.