Vintage Reels, Clumsy Truth, Freedom

A new day.
After several weeks of spinning activity, crazy fun and heartbreaking change, Jack and I are on our own with no activity. Perfect.

Strategic Idea: a week of healthy consumption and no screens. Adventure.
First: we dive into my office downstairs to explore some family history.  I teach Jack to thread a 50 year old 16mm projector. (He thinks he already knows.)  There’s nothing quite as nostalgic for me as the clicking of film through those gears. Yes, that’s me when I was your age. No that’s not Nana, Grandpa was filming the pretty girl dancing next to Nana.

Jack tries to put the people in their proper locations on the family org chart.  Ours is particularly challenging.

We pull out the 20 year old Sony camcorder and watch tapes of Erik and Riley as toddlers.
Those two are his kids; I was married to him then.
“Then you two got divorced and you married daddy.”
Yep. And God blessed Daddy and me by giving us you.
And your Daddy and I will never be divorced because God is our king.  (Plus I’m crazy about him.)

“And you have two Dads … just like they do”
That’s right Nana married Papa and he became my Dad.  But he was my uncle before that so I loved him my whole life.

I can see I’ve now given him all he wants to hear at this moment.  He’s heard all this before, but as he grows, he processes it in new ways. But I want to expound and add 40 years of my own processing…. I smile and wink. It’s all love.

Truth, even when it seems clumsy and messy is far greater for setting us free than any sort of manipulating or revisionism.

He returns to the Sony camcorder to shoot the movie in his head. He’s content.

Ready for adventure.