We have lived in Sri Lanka for nearly a month. It's hard to believe it has been that long. It seems as though we just got here and have been living here forever.
We built our new home quickly, pouring the foundation before we even landed in Colombo. As such we were on our feet quickly and anxious to explore our new home. In a few short weeks, we started a new job, a new school, joined two new swim teams (Elise and Sam), bought an orange car (I never pictured myself owning an orange car; it's actually closer to a rust color), hired two people who whose lives would become intrinsically interwove into our own, ordered take-out Taco Bell, went surfing, ate dosas, and drove on the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the road going the wrong way down a one-way street.
Peter has a healthy obsession with Godzilla. I remember having the same obsession when I was about his age. He wants to know everything about kaiju, Japanese for monster, but meant to refer to larger-than-life, rubber suit-wearing, megalopolis-stomping super-monsters. Unfortunately, his brother and sister do not share his affinity for wanton destruction and became quickly annoyed when Peter spent the entire morning on our recent trip to the beach asking, "What does Muto do?"
How the hell am I supposed to know, I thought. I don't even know what a muto is.
Thing is...I'd given Peter every reason to believe I knew exactly what muto did.
This is the dad who raises the kids on a healthy diet of Star Wars, who knows the history of the Marvel and DC universes better than I know the history of our own universe, and who plays Dungeons & Dragons with them on rainy Saturday or Sunday mornings. I should know exactly what muto does. But I didn't.
So, we Googled it.
Muto stands for Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism and first appeared in 2019's Godzilla: King of the Monsters, which would easily be Peter's favorite movie if he was allowed to watch PG-13 movies or hadn't been terrified by the first five minutes of the original 1950's Godzilla movie when we tried watching it together.
There is actually a male Muto which has wings and kind of looks like a stealth bomber with legs and a female Muto which has eight limbs. Both Mutos are capable of generating electromagnetic interference, or EMP bursts, which in spy movies can be used to take down the power grids of entire cities which may or may not be entirely fiction.
Anyway, we now know what Muto does.
Sam started swim team last night. I still remember moving up from the B-team to the A-team at the North Palm Beach Swim Club. This meant moving from an hour and a half practice with Coach Diechert to a two hours practice with Coach Cavanah. But considering we spent a lot of time goofing off (and every Thursday doing relays) on the B-team, the commensurate jump in yardage was much higher.
I was exhausted.
I knew Sam could handle it, but I was worried he'd come home wiped out, unable to do his homework, sit at the table for dinner, or much of anything else, for that matter.
I remember telling my mom I wanted to quit. It was too hard. I wanted to go back to the B-team. I wasn't ready for the A-team. But she talked me into sticking with it, and eventually my endurance grew and my arms ached a little bit less after each practice. I hope Sam sticks with it, too. He has three practices a week for now, Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday morning. I think he will stick with it, but I am just so proud that he went out for the team at all and see that as an achievement, in and of itself. He said even the kid who did not qualify to participate in the October meet in Nepal are still practicing, so I hope he sees that as a sign he can benefit from swimming without ever racing.
Clementine has been good for about one complete melt down a day. I have no idea what to attribute this to. Maybe it is the age she is at, exhaustion from the early mornings and long days, or influence of friends at school.
Last night, she started spiraling right after she brushed her teeth. (It may have been precipitated by Peter asking her what Muto does.) But as she kicked and screamed, I -- as gently as possible when one kicks and screams -- guided her to her bed, slid back the mosquito netting, and crawled in with her. She wanted to read. I had turned off the lights. Instead, I told her a story.
Inspired by our recent trip south to the beach at Weligama, I told her the story of Jojo who lives in Weligama in a one-room grass hut with his mother and older brother and older sister. The hut has a thatch roof and a floor of packed dirt and they all four sleep in the one room on grass mats. Jojo's father is a truck driver. During the week, he drives a gas truck around Sri Lanka, coming home on the weekends. On the weekends, all five of them sleep in the one-room grass hut.
As the youngest, Jojo was often teased by his older brother and sister. When he tried to play with the local boys and girls in the town, they often picked on his, as well. They said his father had other girlfriends all over Sri Lanka; it was likely Jojo didn't even know who is real mother was.
Frustrated and upset, Jojo set out to prove himself. He pointed to the sole island far offshore in the bay and boasted, "I will swim out to the island."
The kids all laughed at Jojo, because, of course, they all knew no one could swim out to the island. The island was too far, the currents were too strong, the waves were too high, and the rocks to sharp and jagged. But Jojo was eager to prove himself, so he striped down to his briefs and waded out into the surf. The water lapped over his ankles, then rose to his shins, and lapped at his chin before the sea floor fell out beneath the soles of his feet. He stretched his long, skinny brown arms and stroked, pulling himself further away from land.
The waves were, indeed high, and the currents tugged at his body. The rocks scrapped and poked at him, but after many long hours swimming in the surf, he arrived at the island, tired and cold.
He stepped onto the island, feeling the cold sand between his toes and looked back at the shore and the town where his family was longingly.
"Hello?" came a voice from the bushes and trees.
"Hello?" Jojo replied. "Who's there?"
"It is I," came the voice, ragged and pitched. "The old man of the island."
"But no one has ever swum to the island before," insisted Jojo.
"I have," said the man. "And now that you are here to replace me, I can leave."
But Jojo didn't want to stay on the island until he was an old man. He had only come to the island to prove to the other boys and girls in Weligama he was strong and brave.
"I don't want to stay here," he told the old man.
"You must," he said, "That is what happens when you come to the island with something to prove. That's how I came here as a young boy, too."
The old man had waddled to the edge of the sea, squinting back toward Weligama and shore, licking his lips, seemingly, in anticipation of rejoining civilization. He swung his arms as one does before a long swim, the darkly tanned and weathered skin flapping from his chest and arms.
"Wait!" yelled Jojo.
The old man glanced at Jojo skeptically.
"You've proven you are brave enough to swim to the island. But what if I told you there was another island, even further away? Imagine what your friends would think of you if you told them you had swum out to this island." Jojo pointed in the opposite direction of shore, out to sea.
"I don't see another island," protested the old man.
"It is so far away you can't see it. It is past the horizon. It is where the long boats go to fish. No one has ever swum there before. You're friends will be so impressed!"
The old man scratched his chin as he pondered this. He circled the island and put his hand to his deep blue eyes, shielding them from the harsh rays of the sun. "They would be very impressed," he agreed. " I would be the most famous man in the town." And as he said these last words, the old man waded out into the water, past the white water of the surf breaking, and started swimming further out to sea.
Jojo watched him go, then turned to shore. He stepped over the jagged rocks on the beach, into the water, and swam back to the town.
When he reached the beach, the whole town was there. His mother and father and older brother and sister and all the kids from the town who had teased him before had gathered at the beach. They were all worried and all had feared he had surely drowned.
When Jojo emerged from the waves, they wrapped up his cold, wet body and brought him grilled mackerels and toddy.
"Jojo," his mother said, "You didn't have to prove anything to us. We love you just the way you are." Everyone in the town agreed, though couldn't explain why they had been so mean to Jojo before.
And everyone in Weligama lived happily ever after.
We built our new home quickly, pouring the foundation before we even landed in Colombo. As such we were on our feet quickly and anxious to explore our new home. In a few short weeks, we started a new job, a new school, joined two new swim teams (Elise and Sam), bought an orange car (I never pictured myself owning an orange car; it's actually closer to a rust color), hired two people who whose lives would become intrinsically interwove into our own, ordered take-out Taco Bell, went surfing, ate dosas, and drove on the wrong side of the car on the wrong side of the road going the wrong way down a one-way street.
Peter has a healthy obsession with Godzilla. I remember having the same obsession when I was about his age. He wants to know everything about kaiju, Japanese for monster, but meant to refer to larger-than-life, rubber suit-wearing, megalopolis-stomping super-monsters. Unfortunately, his brother and sister do not share his affinity for wanton destruction and became quickly annoyed when Peter spent the entire morning on our recent trip to the beach asking, "What does Muto do?"
How the hell am I supposed to know, I thought. I don't even know what a muto is.
Thing is...I'd given Peter every reason to believe I knew exactly what muto did.
This is the dad who raises the kids on a healthy diet of Star Wars, who knows the history of the Marvel and DC universes better than I know the history of our own universe, and who plays Dungeons & Dragons with them on rainy Saturday or Sunday mornings. I should know exactly what muto does. But I didn't.
So, we Googled it.
Muto stands for Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism and first appeared in 2019's Godzilla: King of the Monsters, which would easily be Peter's favorite movie if he was allowed to watch PG-13 movies or hadn't been terrified by the first five minutes of the original 1950's Godzilla movie when we tried watching it together.
There is actually a male Muto which has wings and kind of looks like a stealth bomber with legs and a female Muto which has eight limbs. Both Mutos are capable of generating electromagnetic interference, or EMP bursts, which in spy movies can be used to take down the power grids of entire cities which may or may not be entirely fiction.
Anyway, we now know what Muto does.
Sam started swim team last night. I still remember moving up from the B-team to the A-team at the North Palm Beach Swim Club. This meant moving from an hour and a half practice with Coach Diechert to a two hours practice with Coach Cavanah. But considering we spent a lot of time goofing off (and every Thursday doing relays) on the B-team, the commensurate jump in yardage was much higher.
I was exhausted.
I knew Sam could handle it, but I was worried he'd come home wiped out, unable to do his homework, sit at the table for dinner, or much of anything else, for that matter.
I remember telling my mom I wanted to quit. It was too hard. I wanted to go back to the B-team. I wasn't ready for the A-team. But she talked me into sticking with it, and eventually my endurance grew and my arms ached a little bit less after each practice. I hope Sam sticks with it, too. He has three practices a week for now, Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday morning. I think he will stick with it, but I am just so proud that he went out for the team at all and see that as an achievement, in and of itself. He said even the kid who did not qualify to participate in the October meet in Nepal are still practicing, so I hope he sees that as a sign he can benefit from swimming without ever racing.
Clementine has been good for about one complete melt down a day. I have no idea what to attribute this to. Maybe it is the age she is at, exhaustion from the early mornings and long days, or influence of friends at school.
Last night, she started spiraling right after she brushed her teeth. (It may have been precipitated by Peter asking her what Muto does.) But as she kicked and screamed, I -- as gently as possible when one kicks and screams -- guided her to her bed, slid back the mosquito netting, and crawled in with her. She wanted to read. I had turned off the lights. Instead, I told her a story.
Inspired by our recent trip south to the beach at Weligama, I told her the story of Jojo who lives in Weligama in a one-room grass hut with his mother and older brother and older sister. The hut has a thatch roof and a floor of packed dirt and they all four sleep in the one room on grass mats. Jojo's father is a truck driver. During the week, he drives a gas truck around Sri Lanka, coming home on the weekends. On the weekends, all five of them sleep in the one-room grass hut.
As the youngest, Jojo was often teased by his older brother and sister. When he tried to play with the local boys and girls in the town, they often picked on his, as well. They said his father had other girlfriends all over Sri Lanka; it was likely Jojo didn't even know who is real mother was.
Frustrated and upset, Jojo set out to prove himself. He pointed to the sole island far offshore in the bay and boasted, "I will swim out to the island."
The kids all laughed at Jojo, because, of course, they all knew no one could swim out to the island. The island was too far, the currents were too strong, the waves were too high, and the rocks to sharp and jagged. But Jojo was eager to prove himself, so he striped down to his briefs and waded out into the surf. The water lapped over his ankles, then rose to his shins, and lapped at his chin before the sea floor fell out beneath the soles of his feet. He stretched his long, skinny brown arms and stroked, pulling himself further away from land.
The waves were, indeed high, and the currents tugged at his body. The rocks scrapped and poked at him, but after many long hours swimming in the surf, he arrived at the island, tired and cold.
He stepped onto the island, feeling the cold sand between his toes and looked back at the shore and the town where his family was longingly.
"Hello?" came a voice from the bushes and trees.
"Hello?" Jojo replied. "Who's there?"
"It is I," came the voice, ragged and pitched. "The old man of the island."
"But no one has ever swum to the island before," insisted Jojo.
"I have," said the man. "And now that you are here to replace me, I can leave."
But Jojo didn't want to stay on the island until he was an old man. He had only come to the island to prove to the other boys and girls in Weligama he was strong and brave.
"I don't want to stay here," he told the old man.
"You must," he said, "That is what happens when you come to the island with something to prove. That's how I came here as a young boy, too."
The old man had waddled to the edge of the sea, squinting back toward Weligama and shore, licking his lips, seemingly, in anticipation of rejoining civilization. He swung his arms as one does before a long swim, the darkly tanned and weathered skin flapping from his chest and arms.
"Wait!" yelled Jojo.
The old man glanced at Jojo skeptically.
"You've proven you are brave enough to swim to the island. But what if I told you there was another island, even further away? Imagine what your friends would think of you if you told them you had swum out to this island." Jojo pointed in the opposite direction of shore, out to sea.
"I don't see another island," protested the old man.
"It is so far away you can't see it. It is past the horizon. It is where the long boats go to fish. No one has ever swum there before. You're friends will be so impressed!"
The old man scratched his chin as he pondered this. He circled the island and put his hand to his deep blue eyes, shielding them from the harsh rays of the sun. "They would be very impressed," he agreed. " I would be the most famous man in the town." And as he said these last words, the old man waded out into the water, past the white water of the surf breaking, and started swimming further out to sea.
Jojo watched him go, then turned to shore. He stepped over the jagged rocks on the beach, into the water, and swam back to the town.
When he reached the beach, the whole town was there. His mother and father and older brother and sister and all the kids from the town who had teased him before had gathered at the beach. They were all worried and all had feared he had surely drowned.
When Jojo emerged from the waves, they wrapped up his cold, wet body and brought him grilled mackerels and toddy.
"Jojo," his mother said, "You didn't have to prove anything to us. We love you just the way you are." Everyone in the town agreed, though couldn't explain why they had been so mean to Jojo before.
And everyone in Weligama lived happily ever after.
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