Their World

 

“Does Leo go to Calypso’s Island?”  she asked.

It was as if she was speaking a foreign language.  “What?”  I asked in return.

“Does Leo go to Calypso’s Island?”  she asked again, still the same question which still meant less than nothing to me.  But then she changed it the third time, “Dad, does Leo go to Calypso’s Island?” 

“What on earth are you talking about???” I asked her.  And she told me it was something about the book “The Mark of Athena,” which she was reading and she knew Russ had read.

 

It was interesting in that moment to see the thought processes happening in my head.  “I should read the rest of those Percy Jackson books.  I really should.  He’s read them, and several of the kids have, and I’m totally on the outside of this world and these conversations.  I should read them.”

But another thought crept into my brain, slowly around the edges as these frantic need-to-be-a-part-of-this thoughts were occupying the center.  And this other thought, this calm and relaxed thought, said, “Don’t.” 

“Don’t read it.  Let it be their thing.  His and hers.  His and theirs.  Let them have a place of connection that is theirs alone.  Resist the impulse to need to be everywhere.  To be everything.”

 

And so I won’t.  I have plenty of books to read, after all.  Instead I will smile when I hear them talking what seems like gibberish to me.  And I will be delighted.