Making a place
By Michelle Martin
“You know he’s terribly shy, but when he talks, there’s a lot of information.”
That’s how Frank’s preschool teacher characterized his first few weeks at a new school. She had been concerned that he often didn’t want to eat the school-provided snacks and didn’t join easily in play with the other students.
True enough—Frank can be very stand-offish until he makes up his mind to join in, and he has definite ideas about food.
When I asked him why he didn’t eat the snacks, he said it was cupcakes to celebrate a birthday. “You know I don’t like eating cake not at home,” he said.
I know. Cake-not-at-home often means cake with lots of frosting, cake impossible to eat without coming away with sticky face and hands. Frank doesn’t like to be messy, nor does he like his food to be too sweet. But he didn’t seem too hungry when he came home for lunch, so I told the teacher not to worry about it.
But shy? The child who that very evening was doing a wild dance in our friends’ living room, all but begging for someone to notice him, while the adults spent too much time in boring grown-up talk?
Well, yes. I’ve seen the way he turns quiet with children he doesn’t know well.
When he’s with his dad and me, he chatters constantly—most often about transportation. He knows the Belmont bus is number 77, the Brown Line is elevated and the Red Line goes in the subway, and that you can transfer between the two at Belmont or Fullerton. He shares his desire to transfer with me—and everyone else in hearing—repeatedly every time we ride the train together, usually three or four days a week. His dearest wish is to ride every train line in Chicago: CTA, Metra, whatever. He repeats it so often his sister gets annoyed, because it’s hard for her to get a word in edgewise.
But he is silent when confronted with other children, children with wishes and desires, brothers and sisters and families of their own. With them, he doesn’t know where he fits.
He likes maps, because they can show him not only where he is, but where all the bus and train lines can take him. (“Mama, one day can we ride the Orange Line to Midway Airport? One day can we ride the Red Line to Chinatown?”)
In our family, he knows and is secure in his place. When his teacher asked about his family, he told her he has a sister named Caroline and a dog named Kirby. When she asked if he has any brothers, he said, “No, I’m the brother!” as though it should be obvious.
But being in preschool—one of his first steps out of the family and into the world beyond—he must make a new place for himself.
In John’s Gospel, Jesus tells his followers that his Father’s house has many rooms, and that he is going to prepare a place for them. But getting to that place means finding your way through so many places in between, from the train table in a preschool classroom to a place at the table of the Lord at First Communion to your own place, a home to move in to as a young adult.
For some people it seems to come easy. Others, like Frank, are more cautious. He wants to check out the map first, see if the place he ends up in is where he wants to be. I can’t fault him for that. I just hope that when he finds his place, he opens his heart and his smile and welcomes others to join him.
Martin is a staff writer for The Catholic New World. Reach her at [email protected].
