Word After Word

There was a fight at Jake’s school: a boy pummeled a boy and they were both suspended. There was a big meeting for all the other non-fighting kids, girls in one place, boys in the other. Jake said they got yelled at. He hated it.

What did they yell at the kids? How bad it was, fighting. How people should have stopped it. Jake looked bereft, telling me this. “You couldn’t have stopped it,” I said. He said, “Another twenty people in the fight. That makes sense.”

Jake’s real good, gentle, quiet, smooth. He’s the third tallest person in the school, including faculty. So he’s grown up with an ability to take up small amounts of space. He moves slowly, deliberate, heavy grace. Like a bear. Fabio in a giant blonde bear suit.  That is Jake. He’s giant and he creates a zone of peace around him.

The other day the Cat was mixing it up with the Dog at Jacob’s feet. I watched from across the room as Jake twisted in his chair, leaned down, and sort of smiled. He slowly put his hands between the two of them, like his hands were pieces of paper. The Cat and the Dog were still snarly and batty and hrarh hrarh. Jake pressed them back.

Very, very slowly. Like God, he just moved them, away from each other, pressing his palms on their little fur-flung chests while said, in this incredibly soft loving deep voice “Animals….. Animals……?” It wasn’t a threat, or even a caution; it was an invitation to better behavior, a ramp that showed them the easiest way back to their normal selves.

I think Jake expected the adults at his school to be more like that. Gentle in the wake of violence, and smart, and kind. instead of yelling and guilting and pressuring and whatever else. I don’t know. I wasn’t there. I could have the whole thing really completely wrong.

But I do know calm good people resent being yelled at to calm down and be good. And fighting people, like instigating Cat and noble Dog, bite harder when the soundtrack is shouting.

One thing I want to remember when I’m warring with myself (go write no go write no go write can’t write must write be a better person), pummeling myself into submission, is this.  “Animals….. animals…..”

A little later the cat and dog ended up dozing near each other on the little round carpet. Closer than they have ever been to each other while asleep. You truly could see them smiling.