I was up too late discussing a film we saw at Think Visual and didn't write an entry last night.
Tom and I took the boys to ODC's Velveteen Rabbit today (thank you Auntie Mo)! Cole was riveted... for at least 20 minutes. George, more like 10. We were in box seats, so they could wander around and not bug anyone. The crowd was full of little kids, so their comments just blended in with our little Clyde noise makers. We all missed Adeline. We did not feel complete.
The sadness of the Velveteen Rabbit story has always been hard for me. I remember weeping and weeping when I first read it as a child. The book sat on my bookshelf. I had trouble even looking at it but I would not get rid of it.
The "happy" ending was never happy to me. So she was real... She was without her friend: the boy who loved her.
Today's performance was no exception. They tried to make it truly happy, happy for the kids, but death and loss is not happy, happy. I was terrified of death as I watched the rabbit become "real." There was no buddhist enlightenment to be found, for me, in this nothingness of death. I felt as if I was the rabbit and I was on a large stage circling round and round. There was no audience, no cast, no meaning. Just circles. And I cried and cried and cried. Tom knew exactly what I was going through (he was having a similar reaction), and he put his hand on my neck.
I was happy to return home and be hugged by a dancing Adeline. I felt I existed again.
Tonight Cole tripped and fell into the corner of a wall. He cried a silent cry, and I ran to him. I held him in my arms and whispered to him because he was still in distress and not speaking. It wasn't until Tom came and gasped that I realized Cole had blood dripping down his forehead. "I touched my head and it was red." Cole finally got his words out. He had a big gash on his beautiful, soft forehead.
We thought it was a trip to the ER, but thankfully my doctor sister Rebecca had the idea that their may still be a doctor at his pediatrician's office, and there was! He only needed a little glue (they glued my son's forehead. Crazy... glue). He took his apple into the office and was more upset about being unable to sit on the small frog chair immediately than he was about anything else.
He chomped on his apple as the doctor glued and taped him. Brave dude (it may have helped that I told Cole that the nurse was Robin and the doctor was Batman). Mommy had to look away a few times and Tom (sitting behind me right now) still has a blood splotch on his cheek. I keep telling him to wipe it off, but I think it must feel a bit like war paint. War paint worn by a guard who is sworn to protect his family. We all lean on him. It's a good thing he's Superman.
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