Why I Love Pikachu

Gesundheit!

No. It's not a sneeze or a baby game (it rhymes with "Peek-a-boo"). Pikachu is a Pokemon.  If you have no idea what a Pokemon is, you probably don't have kids between six and sixteen. Pokemon is a popular cartoon (Japanese animation or "anime") about kids who train little creatures with special powers to compete in what amount to sort-of science fiction cock fights. Sound awful? Well, YEAH, when you put it that way!

But anime has a way of making the most ridiculous nonsense seem reasonable. Even endearing. And Pokemon is chock full of messages about love, loyalty and perseverance.

Anime is no novelty to me. I cut my teeth on G-Force, Voltron and then Robo-tech and my husband on Speed Racer and Star Blazers before me. So I don't question the characters' huge, moist eyes and jagged hair in an array of dayglo colors. I may roll my eyes a bit at the little Pokemon creatures whose entire vocabulary consists of their own name: "Pika…CHU!" "Turtwig!" "Roserade!" "Timmy!"---No, wait. That's South Park.

Can I explain the massive appeal of this essentially silly show? No. But I don't have to. I just LOVE Pikachu.

Why?

Sure, he's adorable. But that's not it.

You see, my son, Gavin, has recently become obsessed with the little rosy-cheeked guy. And while it's disconcerting to ask him a question and receive only "Peekah-peekah!" as an answer, he seems to have learned a few positive things from the lightning-bolt-slinging furball.

Gavin is now in second grade and the spelling tests have begun. During his first practice test at home, my little perfectionist couldn't remember how to spell "this" and the result was a howl of frustrated rage. We were teetering on the brink of a meltdown on par with the effects of firing the Yamamoto's Main Gun. I felt myself begin to panic as I envisioned a whole year of battles over this simple process.

Then inspiration hit me like... well... a lightning bolt.

"Does Pikachu win every battle he's in?" I asked suddenly.

This brought Gavin up short. He eyed me suspiciously, but there was something like hope in his huge, moist eyes.

"No," he conceded.

"Does he give up?" I asked.

"No," he said again.

"When Pikachu loses a battle, Ash just helps him train more so he can do better next time, right?"

If words could only convey the radiance of that boy's smile when he made the connection. It was okay to fail! Pikachu did it and he was still the greatest thing going!

"Peeee-kaaaaaah!" Gavin said joyfully and picked up his pencil again.

The next day, he brought home his first spelling test with twelve out of fifteen right. "Not bad for a beginner," he said, philosophically.

That's probably a line from the show.

Subtlety Thy Name Is God--NOT!

I recently e-mailed my pastor, lamenting my feelings of directionlessness and how they fly in the face of my strong sense of being called in some way. We enjoyed a candid exchange on faith, ministry and mission, service and purpose in life. I wondered if I shouldn't be attending seminary all the while suspecting that ordained ministry isn't where I'm called. Pastor Rob verbalized my misgivings, lovingly cautioning that seminary isn't necessarily "the answer." Finally, I wrote, "Maybe I just need a reading list."

After hitting "Send" I turned my attention to a new e-mail from my best friend, Susan, who lives a thousand miles away from me in Maryland. It was a forwarded message from her sister-in-law's pastor and it contained--wait for it--a reading list.

On that list was Walking On Water by Madeleine L'Engle, a work about faith and art. The description spoke to me. Still reeling from the "coincidence" of receiving this email, I buzzed out to my local library's web site wondering if the system had a copy and how long it would take to get it if I reserved it today.

There were at least a dozen copies in the Hennepin County Library system and my local library had one. Checked in. Right now.

I noted the Dewey Decimal number and hopped into my car. Upon arrival at the library, I bee-lined for the proper section, found the general area and looked down. The book fairly jumped off the shelf at me. I am dead serious. It was smaller, thicker and more colorful than any of the books around it and it was literally the first one I focused on. For good measure, I perused the rest of the section to see if anything else was screaming to be picked up. Nothing. I was home fifteen minutes after I'd left.

I am halfway through the book. My conviction that creativity is a divine call has been reinforced. My faith in fiction as an acceptable Christian discipline has been restored. My reading list is suddenly longer than I can possibly imagine, yet I am excited to tackle it.

One unexpected side effect of this everyday miracle is a feeling of bereavement. I deeply regret than unlike my mother or my best friend, Susan, I will never have the opportunity to meet and speak with Madeleine L'Engle in the flesh. I recall my casual reaction to her dying as just "one of those things" and now I fervently wish I could write her a letter, send her an e-mail, somehow physically acknowledge this profound connection to her I suddenly feel.

If nothing else, I can write. And likely, she will know it.

My Grandmother's Hair

Somewhere I have a photocopy of an old newspaper clipping announcing my Grandmother Fergus's graduating high school at the top of her class. Though her photo looks more like a drawing in my nth-generation copy, it's clear enough to notice her striking resemblance to me. Or mine to her, I should say.

There was a time I was not so pleased about this. My grandmother had a strong German nose which, more obviously than any other feature, I inherited. The memory of walking into my bathroom at eight months pregnant, in a cotton night-gown with my hair in a bun and being startled to see my grandmother looking back at me from the mirror will always stay with me.

Which brings me to her hair--that bun I mentioned. My grandmother never had one of those old-lady short perms that halo the head in order to hide the thinning. She wore her hair in a bun at the base of her head all day every day. Only rarely did I see it any other way, and then it was down. At bedtime, once in a great while, she would emerge from her bedroom at the cabin in her nightgown and when she would turn to go back in, I would see her long hair trailing down her back. It was fine and gray, and it was wavy from having been bound up all day. It must have reached close to her waist. I remember thinking how cool it was that my grandma had long hair. Not even my mom had long hair.

At the moment, my hair is longer than it has ever been. It has reached the point where I can no longer braid it without bringing it forward over my shoulder. It is so long that when I roll over at night, it gets caught under my shoulders and needs to be pulled free. Sometimes I worry about snagging it in the weight equipment at the gym. And I adore it! Because just recently I realized that I have my grandmother's hair. When I pull it into a bun it has to be wound at least four times and with each twist I think of my grandmother and smile.

Someone once told me that I was lucky I was still young enough to wear my hair long, because at her age (40-ish) it just wasn't acceptable to do that anymore. Hah! My grandmother was 84 when she died, and I assume her hair was as long as ever. How cool is that?

Although there are still moments I think it might be nice to have a nose job, by-and-large I have "grown into" my face and my grandmother's nose suits me. Not the inheritance I might have chosen, perhaps. Her hair, on the other hand, I adore, just as I did in those childhood moments at the cabin. I am grateful to have it and I only hope I can do it justice.

And anyway, wearing my hair long makes my nose look smaller.

Box of Bees

I dreamt I was holding a box, perhaps the size of a child's shoebox. I don't remember receiving the box, but I knew I'd gotten it from my father. It contained bees. A new hive, partially built, housing mostly larval bees and a few young adults. The hive had grown considerably since it had first been found--it had then been maybe the size of a finger. But it was growing rapidly. I could expect the hive to double in size in the very near future and, it would seem, nearly all at once. If I didn't find a larger box soon, the hive would literally explode sending a swarm of angry bees on the rampage.

I held the box deliberately between my hands as I and a couple others walked through a quiet wood. Although I can still remember the beauty of the forest, in the dream I was too distracted by the box to enjoy the reverent hush. The box was my responsibility: whatever happened to the hive was up to me. My burden made me very nervous, for I am none too fond of bees. As a biologist, I can certainly appreciate them, but as a person who has been stung more than once, I am wary and mistrustful of them. When it came down to it, what I wanted most was to be rid of the box completely.

But there were limitations to what I was allowed to do with the box of bees. I wondered why I couldn't just throw the whole thing in the lake and drown them and be done with it. But one of my companions told me that, no, the water wouldn't kill the bees and my action would just make things worse. I thought of a few other possibilities for destroying the box but these were similarly shot down. No one said anything to imply that I had any moral obligation to the hive or the bees, to guilt me into thinking my desire to get rid of it was necessarily wrong. It just wasn't practical. It couldn't be done that way.

I remember feeling frustrated at this point in the dream, wondering why the hive hadn't been destroyed when it was tiny and harmless. I didn't get a definitive answer from anyone, just the feeling that, once again, that hadn't been an option.

One corner of the box was starting to wear and break along the edge of the lid and I became quite concerned. I found myself with Dan in a house, the two of us observing the box as it sat on the breakfast bar. We could see through the lid, the little fuzzy bees gently undulating and humming as they drank nectar and grew. It was almost sweet, this little nursery I had charge of. But that tear in the lid was worrisome.

Then it struck me. I could tape the rip with clear packing tape. And if I could do that, I could tape the entire box completely shut. Seal it with layers and layers of packing tape. That would prevent the box from exploding when the hive suddenly grew and effectively suffocate the bees.

As I started wrapping the box, a few of the young bees escaped. Eiledon came up the stairs at that moment and smiled to see the little bees flying around. I, on the other hand, felt sick with anxiety. While Ledon saw cute, bumbly baby bees, out of the corner of my eye I could only see them as sinister wasps with long, skinny bodies and trailing hind parts hanging threateningly--and far too close.

We managed to return them to the box. Eiledon accidentally killed one with her fingers but only giggled and said, "Oh, they're squishy!" I continued to wrap the box as tightly as I could, hoping if I just covered every speck of surface, my problem would be solved. Yet I was aware of someone telling me, "No, you can't do that. At the very least, you need to allow a small hole for thus-and-so" (I can't recall the specifics) and I kept thinking, Why does it matter if, ultimately, I was supposed to destroy the box, or at least dispose of it? Wasn't I?

I awoke still with that awful, heavy feeling of unease. I was grateful the dream was over and I no longer had to try to figure out what to do with this silly box with which no one seemed to be able to help me. I couldn't destroy it, though I felt I was supposed to be rid of it. I couldn't give it away but I had no idea why I had it in the first place. When I tried solving what I thought was the problem, it created more problems. And through it all was this sort of dull dread that at some point soon, if I didn't figure all of this out, the box would explode.

What could it mean? I wondered, half awake. What on earth WAS that box of bees?

"Eiledon," said a voice. Not an actual voice, but the revelation was so clear and sudden it seemed spoken aloud.

The previous night she had been particularly difficult. I could grasp the significance of that fear I have of being stung. I want to do what's right, to be a good parent, but I'm tired of being the target of her anger. Much as I try to blow it off, those cute, fuzzy bees lurk, wasp-like just out of clear view, sinister and frightening. I find my worst character defects rising in response: anger, self-righteousness, the need to WIN the power struggle. I find myself seriously disliking my own child—or worse, wanting her to THINK I dislike her in an attempt to shock her into common courtesy or, at least, obedience.

It doesn't work, of course. Backfires every time and then I've my own guilt and shame in addition to the heaps I've just ladled onto her with my icy stare and dark scowl.

I don't know what to do with this box of bees. As a parent, I have to grapple with the implications of realizing that I wish she were other than she is. That she comes to me in my dream as something dangerous and unpredictable. There must be some instruction in the dream. Is it enough that I identify my own part in creating the problem? It's a start, I suppose. Maybe the box is my own heart and it needs to have room for the WHOLE Eiledon, not just the cute and fuzzy parts.

Bees are wild and beautiful, they fly, they sing, the make the world more verdant and bountiful. Eiledon is all these things. And ready or not, she is growing up. I need to find her a bigger box, and soon.