Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Generous Listening

My kids like video games.

little kid especially loves to interrupt what I am doing to explain a digital incident to me, frame-by-frame in all of its virtual glory. He is enthusiastic and eager to share these adventures and even though it is extremely hard to do, I feign interest even if I'm having a panic attack about the possibility of dying of old age before the story ends -- because I love him and he wants to connect with me in this way, and I'm lucky for it.

"So there was this Stopmore guard, a whole legion of them and I only had a steel battle ax."

"Yeah? So what did you do?"

"I just had to go for it. I started swinging, left and right, and when I realized that wouldn't work, I ran but there was a guy with a horse and the guy with a horse had a blahblahblah and I climbed this blahblahblah and ducked left and found a cache with a steel hammer so then there was this slow motion scene..."

"Wait one second," I interrupt. "Mr. Ashley! Mr. Ashley, come here! You have to hear this one. little kid, start from the beginning, he can't miss this."

"So there was this Stopmore guard, a whole legion of them and I only had a steel battle ax..."

And Mr. Ashley tries not to give me a dirty look and I try not to laugh and we both make interested faces as we listen to the story because we love him and he wants to connect with us in this way and we're lucky for it. Together.

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