Wednesday, February 7, 2007:
Claire and I watch the Shelley Duvall version of Rapunzel. I find it to be very resonant, and touching too. Parents protest and shelter and smother their children. The children can only bristle, and break free. Furthermore, it’s natural to the point of inevitability that they’ll break toward a member of the opposite sex, and to sexuality. And there they’ll find complication, but also probable, or at least hopeful happiness. And the whole cycle will then start again.
Claire is mostly interested in the radishes.
Monday, February 12, 2007:
Sharon brings some radishes home from the store, after the good time we had with Rapunzel the other day. Claire had been especially delighted, and interested. We chuckle a bit in cruel anticipation. Radishes, for heaven’s sake. But the lemon face never materializes. They ask for more! Wait a minute! We try too. They’re right! These stories, or rather the exploring that surrounds them, have more transformative power than we think.
Spencer and I slip over to the library. We look at Gibbons’ Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire for a minute. Then he goes through all of the junior stuff on Rome, and he does so very avidly. We bring a bunch back home. “I’m just really into this subject. I don’t know why.” What a superb, promising child.