A 9-Year-Old Boy's Questions about Guns

Immediately after I heard about the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary, I wanted to scream and throw things and throw more things. I felt sick and sad and yes, angry.

I was driving and physical anger wasn't a real option, so instead I cried. I cried when Obama talked about children who had their lives ahead of them. I cried and listened and cried.

As a country, we are left with another hole. Sadness and more sadness. Gaping holes in our hearts. Swiss cheese holes of loss and sadness and loss and sadness. So many holes now that I wonder about our ability to mend.

I am sad and I am angry. I am angry because it doesn't have to be this way and absolutely nothing has made this clearer for me than the conversation about the shootings that I had yesterday with my nine- year-old son.

I knew that I had to talk with Cole about the shootings before he discovered the news on his own. I knew that he would read or hear about the news, and I knew that it would devastate him. I carefully approached the subject, not exactly knowing where to begin, because let's face it--this is an absolutely shitty conversation to be having with a nine year old.

I told him that there had been a shooting at a school and what follows is Cole's very earnest and very serious attempt to make any sort of sense of what happened.

Cole: How did someone get into a school?
Me: They used force. This is a person whose brain wasn't working right. We call that mental illness.
Cole: How did he get a gun?
Me: There was a gun at his house.
Cole: Why do people own guns? What do they do with them?
Me: (Realizing that Cole has never had any experience with guns - hunting, etc.) Some people hunt, some people go to a shooting range, some people have guns for protection.
Cole: Did he have more than one gun?
Me: Yes
Cole: Why would people want more than one gun?
Me: That's not an easy question for me to answer.
Cole: How does a person get a gun?
Me: They get a license and they buy one at a gun store, much of the time.
Cole: If his brain wasn't working right, then why could he get a gun?
Me: That's a good question (I later find out that the guns were registered to the killer's mother).
Cole: Why would someone want lots of guns?
Me: There are different types of guns.
Cole: What do you mean?
Me: Some guns do different things.
Cole: What does that mean?
Me: Some are small, some are big, some shoot slower, faster (It hurts to say all of this).
Cole: What does faster do?
Me: (I ask him because I can't say it) What do you think it does? (This is a devastating conversation to have with a kid.)
Cole: More bullets.
Me: (Pause, pause, pause, pause. Feeling angry. There is no fucking way that I can explain anyone's need to own semi-automatic or automatic weapons to my son. There is no way. Do you hear this senators and congressmen? Do you hear this NRA? There is no way.)
Cole: I don't really want to talk about this anymore.
Me: You are probably going to be hearing about the shootings in the next few days. Please, please come to me with questions that you have. I will do my best to answer them.
Cole: Okay, Mom.
Me: I love you.
Cole: I love you, too.

At this point Cole runs off to play with Legos. He never asked me how many people died or how old they were. He never asked me if something like this could happen at his school. I am very grateful for this, though I believe that he will ask these questions in the next few days--so the relief is only temporary. He did ask me what happened to the gunman. I told him the truth. It was terrible to say.

I continue to be angry. Very angry. Why am I having this conversation with my son? What do Cole's questions reveal about our country's obsession with the right to own guns? Multiple guns? Semi-automatic guns?

It is messed up, to say the least.

We need to change.

Footloose Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving.

Why must I start this post with a PGO?

(For those not in the know, PGO was coined by my father  in the late 1980s perhaps as a result of living in a house with too many teenagers or "almost" teenagers or "just were" teenagers. It stands for Penetrating Glimpse into the Obvious and its purpose is to call out stupid comments by people in a kind and comical way. My dad is a very kind person.)

Thanksgiving is supposed to be a day we give thanks, though I think I should probably focus on giving thanks on days that do not have pie or multiple pies. I'll call it giving thanks on pie-free days. Who wants to join me?

Thanksgiving is not a joke. I am thankful for all sorts of things. I swear on pie that I am. My life is full of lovely people--big and small, kick-ass music, needling teenagers, art and more art. Science. Technology, even.

I am also thankful for nostalgia. Grab wastebasket. Stop reading. I warned you...

Here's one reminiscence for which I am particularly thankful on this Thanksgiving Day, 2012:

This past Sunday I took my six-year-old daughter and my nine-year-old son to RMHS's production of Footloose.

There are a couple of things that you need to know about my relationship with Footloose in order to fully understand the nostalgia with which I approach this experience.

I was 13 when the movie starring Kevin Bacon came out. Having spent a lot of time with high school freshmen lately, I understand the terrible movie infatuations of freshmen.

Not only was I 13, but I was also growing up in Salt Lake City, Utah where dancing was allowed, but smoking, drinking and having sex were forbidden (at least in my house). So when Kevin Bacon performed his sizzling, beer-bottle throwing, smoke-blowing gymnastics routine (I just learned today that he had three stunt doubles--oh--the horror!) and later, the town minister changed his views about dancing, I was smitten.

See for yourself. He is was so....hot.



And surprise, surprise. There's a little piece of Utah history wrapped up in Footloose. Parts of the movie were filmed in Utah, specifically that dance scene. Geneva Steel, baby. Lehi Roller Mills, baby. Somewhere in Utah, baby. Give me your best high-pitched, enthusiastic 13-year-old girl scream.

Footloose reminds me of a lot of beautiful things. Like slow dancing (They maybe should've outlawed this at East High School dances in the 80s), pimples, Kenny Loggins and more Kenny Loggins.

On this Thanksgiving Day, 2012, I am thankful for my memories of Footloose and the fact that my children, though somewhat confused by the story line (four days later Thea is still trying to tell me what it was about), sat next to their misty-eyed, reminiscent mother for nearly three hours, only complaining that the musical was too long but once.

Bless their hearts sweet mother of Jesus.

Thank you, world, for giving me the gift of motherhood and thank you, kids, for tolerating me as your mother. I wish that I could assure you that things like Footloose and misty eyes, and bad singing didn't have to be a part of my job as your mother. You are probably wishing that Spotify and YouTube were never invented because of what people like me do with this information.

I am sorry. No. I am not sorry. I am thankful. Today is Thanksgiving.

I am thankful for the unconditional love of my children. Yes, Aidan, I know that this is embarrassing, this public outcry of love and thankfulness and that it's somehow connected to some of the lamest music you've ever heard. But I'm still not sorry--only thankful.

I complain sometimes (ok, a lot) and I'm grumpy sometimes (ok, a lot), but holy crap do I love my family--my husband, my children and my cats. I wicked love you.

I also love my extended family and my Rhumb Line family and family by association or disassociation.

Thank you, Footloose, for bringing it home.

Monkey Wrench Lorax Cole and Hobbes Gang

I found this story in Cole's writing notebook from school. I have been given permission to share it. I feel closer to John Calvin, Thomas Hobbes, happy endings and my kid.

In the Jungle
Written by Cole Cunningham
Age 8
June, 2012

Deep in the jungle the tiger is sleeping and then a great rumbling sound growls. At first the tiger (Hobbes) thinks it's his stomach. But it's not. Then a big hacking, coughing, sputtering, maniac machine came through and with 1,000 blades of pure steel it chopped down almost 1,000,000 of the 1,000,000,000 trees.

 Let's go back 30 minutes. The conductor of Oil Co. says, "We'll get rid of this stinkin' forest and get stinkin' rich," he said to the co-manager. Soon, Hobbes was getting agitated. So were the other animals. They formed a secret plan. Let's see how it worked.

The first part of the plan worked perfectly. Some people were crossing the river to find more trees to cut down. But alligator overturned their boat and the piranhas nibbled like crazy so that those people wouldn't find any more trees.

Hobbes heard the news and did the end of his plan. When the big machine came through foliage the pumas and ocelots distracted the driver while the tigers let the air out of the tires. Infuriated, the conductor called the police and told them everything but instead of caging the animals they arrested him and his colleagues.

Hobbes lived a very happy life.

This I Believe

All seniors at RMHS are required to write and then read a 3-5 minute "This I Believe" essay. Click here for more details about NPR's revival of Edward R. Murrow's 1951 call for essays. Click here for Edward R. Murrow's 1951 introduction to 'This I Believe'.

In an effort to help my class of 14 very reluctant readers and writers with this process I decided to write my own essay. I thought it would be easy. It has not been easy. Here is my first but probably not final version of my "This I Believe" essay.

THIS I BELIEVE
Jane S. Cunningham

I believe that it is difficult to write an essay about what I believe because beliefs change. They morph like The Wonder Twins, saving the day or the hour or the minute. When they return, it might be in the form of a cheetah or a stallion or an iceberg.

I see how beliefs change as I watch my five year old's beaming face as she discovers an under-pillow note from the tooth fairy or my son's all-encompassing belief that Legos will save humanity. My 10-year-old daughter believes in the power of mystery novels as I did when I read Nancy Drew at her age.

Growing up Mormon in Salt Lake City, Utah came with many already created beliefs. No assembly required. And while I began my life with these beliefs, I have not been able to draw an invisible thread through the religious beliefs of my childhood to now.

It has been a struggle to determine what I should believe and what I can believe and what I want to believe--which is why I look to my children as guides. They are both lightning rods for issues that matter and reminders that sometimes a simple belief, though it may change later, can be just as necessary and satisfying as a complex one.

Thea, my kindergartner, carries around a pink turned grey stuffed animal whose electronic voice box stopped functioning after the twentieth spin through the washing machine. This bedraggled yet well-loved cat provides entertainment, comfort and joy beyond measure. Pink Kitty dresses up in jeweled fuchsia ball gowns and attends all kinds of parties. She sometimes has to go into time out when she misbehaves. Thea believes in the power of Pink Kitty.

When I asked eight-year-old Cole what he believes, he said without hesitation, "I believe that all people in the world are connected." And Aidan, my oldest and an animal lover said, "I believe in being nice to cats, not leaving them outside in the cold all alone."

Adults often get mired in what they are supposed to believe--as if there's a checklist that must be worked through. Some live in cliches. Children's beliefs are different and in many ways more honest than grown up beliefs.

Children believe what they want to believe.

I want to believe in unicorns. And mermaids.

I want to believe that it is vital and necessary to believe in something. Believing in something is the invisible thread that connects me to my own childhood and my own children.

For them and myself I believe in love and second chances and imagination and small acts of kindness. I believe that a scar can be a sign of bravery and healing. I believe in music making and art making--art with a little "a" not a big "A." I believe in giraffes and dust bunnies and circus peanuts (mainly because they remind me of my dad even though they taste like sawdust).

I believe that beliefs change depending on who and what and where and how--not in a flip floppy dying fish I don't believe in anything way--but with admittance that some beliefs must change as we change.

I believe that this last line is not the end of my essay. This, I believe.

Summer Singing

It is true that summer makes me sing.

Not in the shower, or with the radio.

More like sun singing, green and purple.

Moxie singing. Pesto songs.

Fiddle sounds flutter out of her window and into mine.

Trill. Skip. Moths and butterflies and ladybugs and birds.

And singing.

Bob and Poison Ivy

by Cole

**Note. This story includes drawings. I so want to scan all of the drawings, but for now, it's just the story. The comments regarding the drawings are made by me (unless in quotes).

Aside from a few spelling/punctuation corrections this is exactly how Cole wrote the story.

Cover

*Drawing. Bob saying, "It won't hurt," with all sorts of bumps protruding from his body.

Page 2

Bob was an ordinary man. He liked pizza and going on adventures and rainy days. He went into the woods and touched a leaf. He did not know it was poison ivy.

*Drawing. Bob saying, "It's just a leaf, right."

Page 3

Then Bob's finger started to itch. So Bob called the doctor but all the doctor said was that he should be on a liquid diet.

*Drawing. You should see Bob's face when the Dr. tells him to go on a liquid diet.

Page 4

So then he had to explain it to the doctor. But then he remembered that he was on a liquid diet. And that he ate a turkey for dinner last night.

*Drawing. Bob having lots of funny looks on his face.

Page 5

So Bob said that he ate a turkey. The doctor was so mad that he pulled his beard off and hung up. So Bob went on "Itch" dot com. Itch dot com showed bug itches, instalation (I'm not sure what this is) itches and last but not least plant itches. It showed a plant that was familiar to him; he also remembered he had touched it.

*Drawing. Bob sitting at his computer, straight-faced, visiting itch dot com.

Page 6

It said its name was poison ivy and if you were allergic to it you would have blisters and before you got blisters it would itch a lot lot lot.

Page 7

Well apparently he was allergic. His hand kept itching and it started to get wrinkly too.

*Drawing. Bob looks gigantic and very, very itchy.

Page 8

One week later a blister appeared. It looked green and ugly and it didn't itch anymore. But he didn't know how to get it off.

*Drawing. Four squares showing how Bob cannot get the blister off. Bob has an exclamation point over his head.

Page 9

Bob called the doctor again. He said he was on a liquid diet which made the doctor calmer. Bob talked to the doctor about the poison ivy. He said that it would go away in a week.

*Drawing. Bob on the phone with funny expressions on his face.

Page 10

In a week the bump went away. So Bob was up and running into trouble.

*Last drawing. Scanned for my personal viewing pleasure as I adore the ending to this story.

Kid Stuff

My children are in Maine with their grandparents and I am taking the time to go through the world's largest paper pile--paper accumulated over the past year--or maybe longer.

I am finding things that I have not seen before. Little sketches, stories, poems, pictures, notes. A year's worth of children being children.

A year's worth of pink kitty drawings.

I have been laughing out loud. And crying out loud. And doing other things out loud.

I have been invigorated, inspired, illuminated, awed, soured (like a pickle, not milk), surprised.

I am profoundly thankful for the teachers, friends, and humans interacting with my children; you are a gift.

My children are a gift and I am grateful.

Over the next few days I am going to try to post found things that I love. My favorites...and then I will shove everything into a folder or box or file or cabinet. I will freeze moments in time. I will let go and live.

Baby Learns to Crawl

A few days ago we noticed a loose tooth in Thea's mouth. Bottom right. A little wiggly.

Thea is four and has expressed great enthusiasm for having a wiggly tooth like her older brother and sister.

But four seems a little young for a wiggly tooth.

We went through all of the things that it could be:

1. Sucking two fingers, regularly.
2. A bump to the mouth.
3. Sibling rambunctiousness.
4. Alien abduction.
5. Pink Kitty (Pink Kitty gets blamed for a lot these days).

Of course it took us forever to realize that it might be that she is losing her first tooth.

Why would she lose a tooth? How could she lose a tooth?

MY BABY IS NOT LOSING A TOOTH!

A quick look behind the loose tooth revealed the cause: a big girl permanent tooth making its way into the world, rearing its bumpity little head, causing parents to hide tears of sadness--I mean joy.

Thea is genuinely happy about the prospect of gaining a big girl tooth in the place of her silly old baby tooth. She is genuinely happy about her first visit from unicorns and the tooth fairy.

But I'm not as easily convinced that this tooth thing is a good thing.

It means one thing: I'm losing my baby. She is being replaced by a girl. A big, big girl, a teenager, almost. And there is nothing to be done about it.

Do you hear that internet? Nothing.

She will grow and I will mourn and hold on to the bits of baby that are left, cat whiskers, for example.

When she stops drawing 100-whiskered cats, expect another ridiculously maudlin post from me. You might not want to be around, say, when I write about her first day of kindergarten (September, you've been warned).

Love you baby girl.

Love you. Always.

Eel the Komodo Dragon

Cole's class is making self-published, hard cover books. He is very excited about this project.

I found this draft on our dining room table.

PS--I asked Cole a little bit about his drawing and ideas. He reports that the picture is Eel in Antarctica, one of the many places the Komodo dragon tries out in his search.

Eel The Komodo Dragon

This story is about one Komodo dragon. He just doesn't know that where he is is where he should be so he goes to different places and tries to find his true home but when he finds out that where he was is his true home he has to fix his life.

Living

Rumbling thoughts. Trying to remember so that I don't forget.

Horribly sentimental, remembering my babies in the house. Round the table, the center of this house, talking about Howard Blackburn and what makes a hero.

Colored lights on the tree. Elaborate squirrel traps. Butter on steak.

Babies crawling across the floor give way to running children, through the yard, past peonies in full bloom.

Saint Francis in the garden says a prayer for us all.

Bless this family. Bless these people.

It is the people who make the memory.

We forget, sometimes, what we don't want to remember. Sometimes we forget what we want to remember.

But we try to hold on in some small way.

I remember fires in the fireplace and smokey living room, sitting in the sun, tea and coffee. Stone steps.

Halloween and masks and the piano. Knitting in the sitting room, knitting in the living room. Knitting hats. Mittens.

Her hands. His laugh. Our laughter.

Braided rug, in our house now.

Pictures and pictures. Listening with Aidan, assignment for school to retell a story that has been passed down from generation to generation.

The story of Nena with her sister and her German mother in Washington DC in the park and being asked not to speak German. Nena's memory. Nanny's memory and now Aidan's memory, recorded in her Book of Me.

The memories continue as I think. Some flutter in front of me and are lovely and disappear as quickly as I have remembered them. Some linger, like stringed instruments.

There is beauty and sadness in memories. There is something ghostly that comes from knowing that this is my memory and only my memory.

Others have different memories. We try to remember what we want.

Living becomes mixed up with dying.

Influence

e.e. cummings poem, followed by ra ra riot lyrics

dying is fine)but Death

?o
baby
i

wouldn't like

Death if Death
were
good:for

when(instead of stopping to think)you

begin to feel of it,dying
's miraculous
why?be

cause dying is

perfectly natural;perfectly
putting
it mildly lively(but

Death

is strictly
scientific
& artificial &

evil & legal)

we thank thee
god
almighty for dying
(forgive us,o life!the sin of Death


Dying is Fine, John Pike, Wesley Miles, e.e. cummings

To settle our thoughts
Never minding what for
nothing of a harm to dread
On my mind
Tell me what belies
Oh Tell me what I could have
Oh
Tell me what for

No more of this living dying
Just scientific analyzing
Forgive us oh life
The sin of

Death oh baby
You know that dying is fine but maybe
I wouldn't like death if death were good
Not even if death were good

Is this it
Maundering about and
All I have is too much time
To understand
One can only love
Life until its ending
Oh
And I can't forget

No more of this living dying
Just scientific analyzing
Forgive us oh life
The sin of

Death oh baby
You know that dying is fine but maybe
I wouldn't like death if death were good
Not even if death were good

The Turkey

Cole brought this message about the turkey home from school a couple of days ago. He seems a little conflicted about his turkey eating. He loves to eat turkey and he loves turkeys. What to do?

Our conversation:

Me: So you don't think that we should eat turkey on Thanksgiving?
Cole: Do you eat turkey on Thanksgiving?
Me: Sometimes.
Cole: I am only going to eat turkey on Thanksgiving.

The Turkey
by Cole S. Cunningham

The turkey is known on Thanksgiving. I have to state that it really hates it.

The turkey hates everything about the Thanksgiving day. They see one after another being slaughtered all day. Before they know it, they're being slaughtered too.

So please eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Aidan's Red

I finally found Aidan's red poem. It had been hiding amongst the hundreds of papers that inhabit the house. Someday those papers are going to have their own room.

Red

Red leaves in the fall
from the trees
to the ground, from the
top to the bottom.
Red, deep red deep as blood
flowing through the
heart. Red hearts, apples
in fall, like leaves
falling to the ground
top to bottom in
the fall.

Edge

Today I follow the small, black fin of a harbor porpoise.

I run. It swims. I run until I am out of breath and the fin is out of sight.

Yellow, the center of a flower, in the leaves and on the wall.

The long of it. And the short of it.

Walk until the edge is out of sight.

Cole's Halloween Poem

What Happens to a Thing from Halloween In November
by: Cole S. Cunningham

Ghosts groan
candy rots
witches go to China.

Zombies take the day off.
A Jack-O-Lantern is useless.

Now cats are just cats.

Bats go in caves.
Skeletons shatter down to their graves
bones and all.

It's stormy
the moon won't be glowing
like it did on Halloween night.

Halloween's frightened by November.

Halloween masks don't give people a fright
it's November.

No more spiders no more rats.
It's November.

Halloween is over.

At midnight I hear his voice; she has fallen out of bed and is crying and he is trying to soothe her.

It is confusing for both of them. He's been trying to get home for three hours, ankle deep in swamp, dark as hell.

She's in a strange, cavernous house.

I pick her up, carry her to my room.

I leave him standing in the half-lit hallway of broken promises.

Why wasn't he here? Why do they worry? What to do?

The story is the same.

At 12:24 the baby screams. We are separate and not sleeping, all of us under this roof.

I am here for him. They are here for them. He is here in a dream.

And Malcolm Gladwell is not the golden boy they describe.

A Postcard from Salt Lake City

Yesterday I bought the album The Suburbs, Arcade Fire and listened to it in its entirety (two times) while I sewed curtains. Sew. Listen. Sew. Pin. Listen. Remove stitches. Pin. Sew. Listen.

The album got in and got stuck and will not leave. Maybe reading Olson has something to do with its persistence--or memories of childhood or talk of the grid or self-aware lyrics (maybe painfully so) or the prettiness of the song about sprawl that made me want to find out more about this album, folks who live in Montreal now, but wanted to write about growing up in the suburbs of Houston.

In finding out about them I found what's below: The Wilderness Downtown--worth the efforts of installing Google Chrome--especially for people who grew up in the capital of grids, Salt Lake City.

I'm a bit haunted by this song and this video and the opportunity to write a postcard to my younger self as it brings up all sorts of stuff--the house that raised me, the city of salt, the people who have come and gone. It's a bit surreal, watching a memory explode with trees while listening to this band's postcard to and from the suburbs.

My Wilderness Downtown

About Walking

It is September and I have been walking.

I am taking note because James Cook and Peter Anastas and Charles Olson have got me thinking about walking. In Gloucester.

Do people walk? Do people in Gloucester walk? And why do they walk? And why do I walk?

1. Gloucester has walkers, walkers who make a person stop and think about walking.

a. Richard from Bananas walks. He walks from East Gloucester to Main Street and home again. Almost daily.

b. The man with the sandals from Lincoln Park walks. He walks and he sits and walks and he sits.

c. Aurora used to walk. Aurora used to live in Lincoln Park. I miss Aurora.

d. My backyard neighbor walks. She waves and I smile. I wave and she smiles.

e. The dog walkers walk. Sometimes they collect their shit and sometimes they don't.

f. Ernie walks. He is training his new dog Bogen with the three legs to walk long distances because Ernie walks long distances. With his camera.

g. The Boulevard walkers walk. I do not know their names, but I recognize their faces.

h. Main Street walks. Briskly. With packages. With purpose. With anger. With amusement. Pushing baby carriages. Drag feet style.

I walk because I like the sound of footsteps following footsteps. It is slow some days and I sit. I look people in the eye--if I want to. I notice the flap, flappity of the flags that I wish someone would take down after the holiday.

I count stars, lights, bits of sea glass. I count waves. I count people. Walking.

Some days I think about her and her and him and her. And you. Sometimes.

Tonight it came up about what matters.

I think that Gloucester matters. And walking matters. And people matter.

Tonight I am happy that people matter.

Thea Writes

Uh. It was a great day. There was just two rains and then there was two sunnies. And then dark.

We played on the park. We went to the gym. We had fun at the park.

I'm done.