The Dull Fight

The new kid on our cul-de-sac is named Evan.  He moved in this summer and is a few months older than Gemma.  There is a boy a bit older than he who lives here, too, but this boy is never at home and when he is, he can never play.  It's kind of mysterious, actually.

So Evan is left to play with Gemma, Kate, Ayla and Bella (4 girls of the same age) and Joshua, Joshua (yes, there are two) and Riley (3 boys of the same age). 

Evan is a sweet child.  He has very good manners.  I credit him deeply for playing so well with all the girls and so gently with these younger boys.  However, nothing about this gender distribution has inhibited him from playing what is most interesting to him.  This, of course, is Star Wars.

I don't remember doing this as a child--e.g. making a game out of a movie.  But the cul-de-sac kids do. Among them is a broad assortment of light sabers and plastic guns and they kids run around most of the afternoon attacking each other.

I do not know if they have more rules than the overall point, which is "Fight!"  Are there teams?  If someone "gets" you, do you have to sit out or go tag something or do you keep fighting, immortal? 

Gemma is somewhat interested in this gaming.  Often, she and Kate will lose interest and do their own thing, probably with Ayla and Bella, too.  But Joshua.  Whew!  He is taken by the entire enterprise.  (Am I allowed to use the word "enterprise" when speaking of Star Wars and not Star Trek?)

Evan is obviously building into this play little tutorials about the world of Star Wars.  I know this because every now and again, Joshua announces a factoid to me such as, "General Grievous has 4 arms and 4 light savers!"

"General who?"

"General Grievous!"

"Who is General Grievance?"

"No, Mommy.  General."

"What?"

"Say, 'General.'"

"General."

"Now say, 'Greivous.'"

"Grievance."

"No!  Greeev. . . .US"

"Oh.  'Greivous.'"

"Now say it together."

"General Grievous."

"Yes.  And General Grievous has 4 arms and 4 light savers!"

(I sigh.  I sigh because there was--there must have been!--something interesting and valuable I was thinking about and had to stop thinking about so that I could hear Joshua tell me something about what Evan has been telling him. . .)

"How did he get 4 arms?" he asked me.

"I don't know."

"He's the all white guy but Evan said he used to be human but he how did he get from being human to having 4 arms?" 

Josh asked me because he is 4 and so completely convinced that his parents are all-knowing.  Would this be the moment he had to learn that I don't, in fact, know all?

"I don't know, Josh.  It's been a long time since I've seen that movie and I just don't remember General Grievous." 

Long pause.  Was my fallibility dawning on him?  No.  Because he then asked, "But how did he get 4 arms?"

Argh!  Would you believe he has been talking for 2 weeks about this General, asking me the same questions for which I still do not have answers? 

The biggest reason he thinks I do know and am just holding out on him is that he saw bits and pieces of all 6 Star Wars movies when we were in Florida this past Christmas.  The General must be a character from one of the first 3 episodes, which are not to be confused with Episodes IV, V and VI, which were the first 3 movies made and released starting in, what? the late 70's? 

[Side note:  Joshua quickly understood how it is that first 3 movies we watched, e.g. Episodes IV, V and VI, are not the first 3 sections of the over-all story.  So here he is, capable of understanding a complicated situation like the oddly ordered Star Wars movies, but unable to understand that I don't know who this General is!]

[Another side note: Because of Evan, my children refer to Star Wars, Episode IV, the first movie that started it all, as "New Hope."  That's its actual name, which I never knew until Evan came around.  It sounds wrong, though, every time I hear it.  Star Wars is just Star Wars, OK?]

[Another Side note: When these movies were playing marathon-like on some cable channel down in Florida, and as we were watching bits and pieces, my dear mother-in-law kept me asking questions.  Right in the middle of the movie.  Why wasn't she asking Bryan?  Not sure. . .
"Why are they dressed in robes?"

"Because they're Jedi Knights.  It's like a uniform."

"Well are those good guys?"

"Yes, they are Jedi."

"Well what are 'Jedi'?"

"The peace-keepers of the entire universe!"

"Oh. . .(30 second pause). . .Is that hairy guy a monster?"

"No, he's Chewbakka.  He's a Wookie."

"Well why is he with that guy?  Is he a pet or something?"

"No, he's like Han Solo's best friend.  They are renegade partners."

"How does that guy understand him, though?"

"Because he speaks Wookie!"

Finally, after, like, a lot of this, she asked, "Do you know all this because you're a big fan of this Star Wars?"  and I answered, after brief thought, "I think I know it because I'm an American under the age of 60."]

[Another side note: There was a headline in an English-language Korean newspaper shortly after we moved back to the States.  The article was about the yearly tight-rope walkers competition in Seoul, which, that year, crossed the River Han in the heart of downtown.  (I'm not sure if the competition always locates there.)  The headline read, Skywalker Crosses Han Solo.  So, really, it's not even just an American thing, is it?]

Back to, eh, let's see here. . .  Ah, General Grievous. 

Joshua is desperate to know about this character.  And we have been spending our family movie nights making our way through the episodes.  Return of the Jedi was the Friday before last.  Josh asks often when the next movie night will be, for then we shall watch Episode I, Phantom Menace. 

(Which happens to be the first movie Bryan and I watched together in a theater.  And that happened a few weeks after our wedding!  What a risk!  Imagine if he had been the type of movie-watcher who wants to talk and comment throughout the whole thing!  But he's not.  A narrow miss indeed. . . .)

When we were flying home from Florida, Joshua got tired at one point and lay on his seat, head on my lap.  He held his two hands in front of his face, pointer fingers extended, and started slashing them against each other, making light saber noises with his mouth.  Bryan tells me that he was like this as a child--fascinated by martial action. 

As far as the cul-de-sac goes, and in the movies, and in his imagination, it is all very, very exciting.

This boy doesn't know a different category of conflict awaits him in adulthood.  After the excitement of a bout with cancer, for instance, comes the bout with an old vehicle that keeps breaking down--not everything at once--just piece by piece so that you pay to repair it only to have another piece break a month later and is it good money after bad or is it sensible to nurse it along until such a time when you can responsibly buy a replacement?  There is no glory whatsoever in a conflict like this.

Or even the bonafide wars of the world.  Joshua has been asking lately, "Is there a war in our world right now?" and I tell him that, yes, there is, since soon after the Garden of Eden, there has always been a war going on somewhere on this planet and that right now, there are 2 wars going on that Americans are fighting in, Bella's Daddy is fighting in it right now.

He is stunned by this.  Every time he asks.  How could there be a war somewhere?  He looks around.  Doesn't seem like there's a war happening.  Where are the red lazer flashes, and exploded Death Stars and get-a-way pods and star ships that travel at the speed of light? 

Not here, Josh.  Enjoy Episode I.  Later episodes are not nearly as interesting.