Endearing Adolescent Behaviors

Teenagers are no longer children but they are not quite adults. Part boy and part man or part girl and part woman, each is a complex mixture of maturity and immaturity, riding his or her last leg of physical, emotional, social and cognitive development up toward adulthood. Throughout history, the innocence and emerging boldness of young adolescents has been a cultural fascination.

Our culture today is particularly fascinated by teenagers. We find the combination of immaturity and emerging adulthood in a teenager highly endearing. Philip commented on his own feelings toward the immature behavior of teenage girls one day. “Lots of girls I know talk really fast and throw in ‘like’, ‘sooooo’, ‘oh-oh’ and ‘you know’ as filler,” he said. “I just find that really cute.” Moments after Philip made the comment, I remembered having similar feelings when I was his age. I remembered partially mimicking the communication pattern when talking with teenage girls. I would accelerate my own voice and throw in similar filler as punctuation to my half of the conversations. As an adult, I rarely speak with teenage girls, but when I do I now interact with extra deliberateness, extra articulation and less excitement than I would when speaking with an adult or even a teenage guy. I alter my communication behavior with teenage girls this way in order to clearly establish what I believe is an appropriate safe distance of unfamiliarity between adult men and teenage girls. As a result, it had been a very long time since I had witnessed this kind of teenage girl manner of speaking until just the other night.

The other night a group of families had gotten together for a late summer barbeque and many of the teenagers had invited friends along. The result was an unusual social mixture of adults, teens and tweens. Among the teenagers present was Philip’s friend Jocelyn. Jocelyn had recently returned from a month-long summer adventure into the Amazon jungle, and everyone wanted to hear the details of her rather unique experience.

As Jocelyn got more and more comfortable interacting with us as a group, she transitioned into what only could be described as a monologue. She spoke as quickly as she could think and released a stream of consciousness from which her story emerged in bursts and stops, often backing up to add extra detail that had initially been omitted. At least every other sentence contained the kind of filler words Philip described as cute. Jocelyn spent a while describing how her interest in the Amazon jungle first emerged early in the previous school year and then how her interest oscillated between intense interest in the Amazon and intense interest in various other summer pursuits as the school year progressed. Her recount of her oscillating interest culminated some time in April when it was only days before she had to register for the intercontinental adventure. Jocelyn’s long preamble included many references to her interactions with her mother who was clearly both very patient and very supportive throughout her daughter’s on-again-off-again decision process. I found it particularly touching how much Jocelyn chose to include her mother in this part of the retelling of her story.

Eventually Jocelyn transitioned to the trip itself. It included a brief description of the service projects she did in the villages, but she mainly focused on the details of day-to-day life. She first told us that in order to be culturally appropriate, her clothing had to be much more modest than had ever been required of her. Everything from her knees to her collar bone and shoulders needed covering. Then she talked about bugs, spiders and a large cat that pawed through the garbage one night. She ended her story talking about how she wanted to go to Africa next summer with the same teen adventure organization. The whole time Jocelyn spoke rapidly, jumped back and forth between distinct topics and punctuated her words with teen girl filler language. Philip was right. It was really cute.

The evening with Jocelyn was an important reminder to me. Though Philip and Chloe are now both in the second half of their tenure at home, I still have plenty of endearing events, actions and sayings to hear from both of them in the future. The happy memories will keep coming.

Family Summer Fun during the Great Recession

The national debt is climbing, unemployment is excessively high and every neighborhood has at least one foreclosed home sitting empty. Contractors are competing for substantially fewer bids and revenues at small businesses are down significantly. Even for those who are working traditional jobs, commissions, bonuses, raises and overtime are in short supply while pink slips, pay cuts and layoffs constantly loom.

Despite the problems in the economy in general and personal financial challenges in specific, our family has made an effort to have fun together but on a tighter budget. As summer rolls into its final month, I cannot say we have indulged in only what is free, but we have found some very good low-cost values.

Our first low-cost pleasure has been free concerts on the beach. The sun sets and the summer heat melts away in favor of warmth radiating from the sand and a cool breeze blowing in from the water. Upper body layering becomes essential: A shirt, a sweater or sweatshirt and a pullover are ideal. But one can always be barefoot. Chart-topping bands from the 60s, 70s and 80s leverage their faded stardom to attract baby boomers, gen-Xers and their families. Parking rates are high close to the beach, but for those of us who are willing to walk there are less expensive and even free alternatives.

When Independence Day came around, a larger crowd than usual watched the fireworks from a distance on a piece of open green space in our neighborhood rather than paying the pricey admission to see the fireworks up close from the celebration in the town’s largest park. We invited friends to join us beforehand for a potluck barbeque. Rita brought her son and daughter over. We also had Joshua, Debbie and Abby along with their parents, plus Kevin and Katie join us. The teens and tweens went into the back yard, played music and jumped on our trampoline until it was time to watch the fireworks. Philip and I left briefly for Philip to play in an exhibition lacrosse game at the town’s largest park that included players from the youth, high school and adult teams promoting the sport to the community.

When we thought about summer camp for Chloe, we found a great alternative in youth theater. For the cost of just one week of traditional camp, Chloe joined roughly fifty other kids ranging from ages eight to seventeen and had six weeks of three hour evening practices. She has been singing, dancing and memorizing lines. She built a small wardrobe of various costume changes. A t-shirt and a few other items will be fun clothes for the new school year and perhaps her most flamboyant costume will be what she wears this coming Halloween. Chloe has made one new friend, strengthened one old friendship, been mentored by outgoing teenagers and been looked up to by adoring pre-tweens. Production was scheduled for the final days of July. As we took Chloe to the theater two hours early on opening night, she was beaming with excitement, anticipation and confidence. The play was beautiful and Chloe is now looking forward to the cast party as well as future get-togethers with her new friend.

Our least expensive piece of family fun has been arguably our most favorite. We are reading a novel out loud to one another in the evenings before bedtime. Picture a story that combines various elements that made Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, The Da Vinci Code and Twilight popular and enjoyable reads. It may be an oversimplification, but that is what our family has found in a lesser-known novel titled Angelology by Danielle Trussoni. The thick novel spins a multi-generational tale of secrets, conspiracies, cover-ups, other-worldly beings, supernatural powers, great hidden libraries and remote caverns, good versus evil, romances and adventures. We curl up comfortably in our pajamas sinking into the soft family room furniture and wrap ourselves in blankets. We allow just enough electric light to read comfortably and augment the ambiance with candles, popcorn and hot cocoa.

As I drift off to sleep each evening, I wonder how we will remember this summer. Will we mainly remember the hardships? Or will our memories mainly include our low-cost indulgences? My guess is we will remember both, but what we will mainly remember is sharing life with each other during this particular window in the kids’ development. Fun and great memories can be had in tough times. And love can endure and flourish even in the toughest times, including the Great Recession.

Words and Acts of Affection

While the two are not particularly close, Philip and Davis travel within a loosely connected extended crowd that includes teens from all classes at Hermes and other nearby High Schools. Like Philip, Davis is fifteen and enjoying the summer between his freshman and sophomore year.

Philip met Davis one night in October at Charlotte’s house. There were perhaps forty-five teenagers present. Girls clearly but not ostentatiously outnumbered the guys. Just under half the guests were sophomores, followed by juniors, then seniors and finally freshmen. There were two freshman girls and three freshman guys: Philip was the only freshman guy from Hermes High School. Davis and the other freshman were from Conquistador.

Charlotte’s soiree highlighted the complex rituals of mutual validation high school girls carry on among one another particularly when greeting and saying good-bye. The rituals include shouting, squealing or even screaming one another’s names and nicknames, hugs and—especially when saying good-bye—the words I love you. These rituals are so important they spill over onto campus and online interactions as well as their interactions with guy friends. In social environments dominated by girls and these rituals, even the guys will cautiously hug and every so often even say I love you to one another.

But the rituals are not as simple as turning on a switch. Philip and Davis entered this crowd cautiously and likewise the crowd received them cautiously. It was two girls in the junior class, Renee and Jocelyn’s older sister Alison, who first started saying I love you to Philip and Davis. By January, the sophomore, junior and senior girls in the extended crowd had all made it a habit to say I love you to both Philip and Davis. The sophomore girls included Jocelyn, Jocelyn’s cousin Diana, one of the lacrosse player’s ex-girlfriend Teresa, Charlotte and Charlotte’s best friend Lauren, probably the most popular sophomore girl. The words I love you were often accompanied by a cautious hug. The freshman girls, however, would never give a public I love you to Philip or to Davis.

The words I love you were one thing and hugs were another. Girls nearly always give one another warm hugs. Guys—if they hug one another at all—give one another cautious hugs. The difference is that there is never any problem being close during a warm hug, but during a cautious hug, somebody is always being careful about just how close the hug is bringing them together.

Girls especially enjoy hugging in front of a camera. Girls will spend hours taking such photos. They often take the shots themselves in front of a mirror so that all present can be in the photos. Erica practically made a career of hugging in front of the camera. During the peak of her popularity, such hugs in front of the camera made Erica the other face in scores of profile pictures on Facebook. With guys, Erica would augment her sideways hug by pressing her hand and wrist onto the guy’s chest.

Since Philip never chases the camera, most pictures we see of him away from the family are taken with one or two girls sideways hugging him. During a Spring break trip to the beach on a cold day, Philip was in only four out of over a hundred taken. In each of the four, Alison and Philip had their arms around one another in a friendly, non-romantic sideways hug. After a barbeque, we saw a few pictures Philip enjoying sideways hugs with Teresa and Lauren. There were similar pictures from both events of Davis sideways hugging Jocelyn and Charlotte.

While Philip and Davis have been getting cautious hugs and the words I love you, Brian has been treated in a noticeably different manner all year. Brian is older and his popularity is huge. Brian, now between his junior and senior year, was Conquistador High School’s starting quarterback. Brian took Lauren as his date to his winter formal and Erica’s older sister as his date to his prom. No girl would ever condescend to give Brian a public I love you or hold back a warm hug. The lesson is a simple one. When a girl publicly says I love you to a guy, and hugs him cautiously, it carries genuine affection. But it also makes it clear he is not one of the hot guys and should not expect to be treated as such. In the eyes of any girl who is also a friend, Brian is unquestionably hot. But at least among older girls, Philip and Davis were not hot—at least until very recently.

On a sunny, windless and humid day in mid-July, many of the kids from the extended crowd were at a large pool together. The girls all wore two piece bikinis. The guys had their shirts off. Nearly everyone was in the pool chatting with one another. This was the first time Philip had his shirt off in front of these girls. While Davis had a belly spilling over his waistband, Philip could have been modeling for a Greek statue. His thin body and loose-fitting shirts had kept his six-pack abdomen plus his well-defined chest, shoulders and upper arms quietly hidden for months. But everyone present--including all the sophomore girls mentioned above—clearly witnessed Philip’s bulk, tone and fitness. When I picked him up and people were saying goodbyes, I noticed the change instantly. Philip was getting warm hugs from the girls and none of them were saying I love you. Davis was getting plenty of hugs, but they were all cautious and accompanied by the words I love you.

The change was not lost on Philip. Without anyone voting or and perhaps nobody even discussing it, Philip was now officially hot, and knowing it made him smile just a little.

Glitter on the Floor and Grinding at the Hips

The club’s rules were enforced to the letter. Club Avalanche’s trained security staff ensured no drugs, alcohol, weapons, or anyone out of dress code or outside the age window of fourteen to eighteen made it through the door. Throughout the evening the security staff remained an ever-vigilant presence inside the club to swiftly expel anyone looking for a fight. These strict rules made me as a parent feel good about Philip attending one of their events.

Over the course of four high school dances during his freshman year, Philip had come to like dancing. While the kind of dancing Philip’s generation practiced at Hermes High School was racier than what I had experienced in my generation, Philip seemed to have found a set of boundaries that worked for him and as such I was comfortable as a parent. After reading all of the Club Avalanche marketing material, I encouraged Philip to check out one of their events. But Philip was only guardedly interested.* He decided to check one out. But he specifically wanted to check it out without bringing a friend along, and he specifically wanted to check it out at their event in Oxford Hills, a thirty-five minute drive from Hermes. In short, Philip didn’t want to see anyone he knew when he went to his first Club Avalanche event.

The evening began with a long wait in line outside the club. The doors did not even open until ten minutes after the event was supposed to begin. I promised not to leave Oxford Hills until Philip had sent me a text message from inside the club. I took the opportunity to enjoy a stroll in downtown Oxford Hills. Half an hour before the event was supposed to begin, Philip sent me a text commenting on his discomfort with the crowd waiting outside the club. Most of the teens in line were displaying a tough exterior, and nobody was using the opportunity to meet new people. Philip did not see anyone else who was alone. He saw groups of guys and he saw large groups of girls with just one or two token guys in tow. He was still only guardedly interested when he finally made it inside.

Colored lights waved. Strobe lights flashed. A DJ played all of the most popular dance songs. Philip was immediately disappointed with how loud the DJ was playing the music. It was impossible for two people to hear one another talking. Philip scanned the room before taking any kind of action. And then he saw it. Over half of the kids were grinding while they danced. There were no rules against grinding or any other sensual behavior at Club Avalanche, although the dress code meant everyone kept their clothes on. There were no drugs, alcohol, weapons or threatening behavior inside the club. But any other rules that one might infer were not enforced at all. There were no parents, no teachers, no school administrators, no coaches and no other rules. If it was consensual and could happen without putting someone out of dress code, it was happening in multiple places inside those four walls.

After assessing the overall mood and climate in the room, Philip started dancing to the loud, fast hip-hop beat. He worked his way behind a girl close to his age dancing without a partner. He had learned to approach cautiously, giving the girl ample opportunity to give him a subtle signal of rejection. At Club Avalanche, he found he was more likely to be rejected than was the case at a Hermes High School dance. But he had expected as much, given he was a stranger to everyone there. Some girls simply didn’t dance with strangers and it wasn’t always apparent who would dance with strangers and who would not. If the girl in question leaned back into his chest, Philip would share the rest of the song with her.

From the proximity of the dance floor, Philip saw the grinding live and up close. Some of it was overt and explicit. But much of it merely involved taking the contact he considered to be normal and extending that contact lower. And so Philip decided to try out the less explicit grind dancing. He began dancing up to a slightly older girl he had already seen grinding with more than one guy. As he got progressively closer, she continued to welcome his advances. With his hands firmly on both her hips, he cautiously moved his hip forward until it was firmly pressed against her buttock. The move was welcome, so he slowly turned to press both his hips against her from behind while she leaned her full body back into him and continued dancing. She seemed both satisfied and distant. His mouth was just a few inches from her ear, but he knew that the music was far too loud for her to hear anything he might say.

The song ended quickly and Philip saw his first grinding partner move on to someone else. He continued the pattern of dancing up to a girl, first securing her acceptance to dance in close proximity and then securing her acceptance to grind. Not all girls who leaned back into him agreed to the grinding, but many still did. With the end of each song, a new dance partner needed to be found. Dancing among the grinders, Philip experienced a surreal, high-energy, wordless cross between speed dating and hookup culture. Eventually, he took a break and visited the men’s room. When the door closed behind him, the music volume suddenly dropped. He felt a numb buzzing sensation in his ears. Then over the music and the buzzing, he began to hear a small group of guys talking about the girls they had been with so far that evening. Their misogynistic attitude annoyed Philip. And yet, without the ability to talk, girls and guys who had not met before were reduced to objects of consensual play out on the dance floor. This is just stupid, he thought.

Philip left the men’s room and returned to the edge of the dance floor. He scanned the room with a newly focused set of intentions. This time, he was looking to identify the girls who were not grinding. He picked up that the girls who were younger and avoiding the center of the dance floor were generally non-grinders. Although members is this segment of the population were the least likely to welcome him to dance in his regular fashion, these younger, more cautious girls were the ones on whom he focused his attentions for the rest of the evening.

At his request, I picked up Philip outside the club about half an hour before the evening’s event officially ended. He didn’t have much to say, except to tell me he was not planning on attending another one of their dance events any time soon. A couple weeks later, he told me he had no intention of ever returning. And as time passed, Philip slowly disclosed the full story of the grinding culture and his brief experiment with it. He had no interest in grinding, especially with complete strangers. And he really hated that fact that he could not even talk to his dance partners over the loud music.

While Philip was embarrassed to disclose the specifics of his experience, it was hard not to be impressed with his depth. His morals and ethics did not grow out of a “do and don’t” list imposed from the outside. Instead, he merely values relationships. And there were no relationships—not even casual friendships—to be found on the Club Avalanche dance floor: just glitter.

* See my comment on this post for an important explanation for those of you who read this blog regularly.

The Double Scoop Boy

Summer is now upon us. School is over. Lacrosse season is over. Chloe celebrated her eleventh birthday. And last weekend we enjoyed this summer’s first ballroom dance event. The whole family went. Chloe brought her friend Wendy along. Philip and I wore dress pants, dress shirts, ties and blazers. Amelia, Chloe and Wendy wore formal dresses. The event was held at an ideal location. Just outside the ballroom was a large deck overlooking a three acre pond brilliantly reflecting a rising full moon.

Chloe and Wendy were nearly the only tweens who showed up for the dance event. There was just one tween boy besides them. Everyone else was either a teen or an adult. As the evening began to move forward, Chloe and Wendy discovered that nobody was asking them to dance. The one tween boy present was sticking close to a handful of teenage girls who were his sisters and cousins. And the thirteen and fourteen year old teen boys were giving their attention exclusively to the teenage girls. Eventually, the two came over to me to complain about their predicament. “Nobody is asking us to dance,” they said in near stereo.

“Why don’t you two go together, walk up to a group of boys and ask two of them to dance?” I asked. Their response was immediate, negative, certain and in perfect stereo. “Well,” I continued. “What if I offered you ice cream as a reward for asking?”

Wendy continued to shake her head, but Chloe got a gleam in her eye and said “Maybe.”

“Alright,” I responded. “You two decide what boys you would like to ask. Come back and talk to me at the end of the next song.”

Chloe knew how best to get what she wanted from me. So at the end of the next song Chloe walked up to me with Wendy at her side and said, “We want to know how much ice cream we get.”

I paused and looked around the room. “There is one boy your age in the room. Asking him to dance will get you a kiddie scoop. You can take turns asking him.” Having asked a boy to dance last summer, Chloe was much more comfortable with the idea than Wendy. Chloe simply waited for the next song to begin and then approached the tween boy who immediately accepted Chloe’s proposal. Chloe returned to us victorious at the beginning of the next song, but Chloe’s success did not inspire the necessary bravery in Wendy. But Chloe’s bravery had inspired the same in another. The tween boy approached us one song latter and asked Wendy to dance.

Getting the tween boy to dance was a good start, but I knew it was not enough. I carefully scanned the younger teen boys not knowing exactly what I was looking for until I spotted him. The Double Scoop Boy was standing confidently with three other boys close to his age. I had already seen him dancing with plenty of girls close to his age. He was not shy, and he seemed to be genuinely enjoying the evening. He had brown eyes, dark hair, light skin and just a few freckles. He was wearing a well pressed white oxford shirt, dark pants and a dark tie. His face still held some of the angelic features of a young boy. “OK, girls,” I said. “If you ask any teen boy to dance, I’ll buy you a single scoop. And if you ask the dark-haired boy in the white shirt to dance, I’ll buy you a double scoop.”

Chloe continued to take the lead. She asked a tall boy with a crew cut who was perhaps fourteen years old to dance. Then two songs later, Chloe approached The Double Scoop Boy and asked him. The Double Scoop Boy jokingly acted deeply flattered by opening his mouth and holding both palms forward before he relaxed into a smile and accepted Chloe’s proposal. He took advantage of the fact that he was taller than Chloe to twirl her as often as the music would allow.

The dance with The Double Scoop Boy had the effect I had intended. The boy with the crew cut stepped forward and asked Wendy to dance. Everyone saw the two girls having fun twirling beneath their young teen dance partners. And for the rest of the evening, Double Scoop Boy, the tween boy and a small band of young teenage boys (including one boy who had a mustache) kept Chloe and Wendy on the dance floor as often as any teenage girl was on the dance floor.

In the end, we all had a great evening. And now I am looking forward to another great evening. I will be spending it with Chloe and Wendy at the local ice cream shop where they will claim the double scoops I promised them.

Sharing the Mundane

Love is what emotionally healthy people do. Nearly everyone wants to love and nearly everyone wants to be loved. I love my wife and my children, and they in turn love me. The key difference that makes love greater than like is sharing life together. This is not to say that people who like each other do not share life together. But what I am saying is that sharing life together is an essential ingredient in love, but it is not an essential ingredient in like.

When I look back at the most meaningful memories in my life, nearly all of them were shared with someone close. And the most meaningful of all were shared with a loved one. This comes as no surprise. But within that collection of meaningful memories, there is a surprise. The surprise is that what was going on during so many of those most meaningful memories was something entirely mundane. In fact, the more I love someone, the more I want to share the most mundane parts of that person’s life.

With Chloe for example, it would have been both easy and normal to simply let her out of the car during the handful of mornings this past spring when I dropped her off at school. But Chloe had a request that once asked I was quite happy to grant. Chloe wanted me to walk with her from the parking lot across the street. In fact the further I walked with her from the parking lot to her classroom, the happier she would be. And sure enough, now that the school year is behind us those memories of walking Chloe across the street those few mornings are particularly treasured memories.

Over four years older than Chloe, Philip is significantly more complicated. His natural desire to explore and assert his independence and my natural desire as a parent to ensure he explores and asserts his developing independence often operate in direct conflict with our mutual desire to share life. If I take too great an interest in Philip’s affairs—especially his most private affairs—Philip reacts quickly and decisively to protect his independence. For his most private affairs and musings both Amelia and I now need to let Philip come to us. And when he does, it is always a treasured memory.

The imbalanced interest in sharing life between a teenager and his or her parents is often a source of great frustration on both sides. But I think I have found the solution to this frustration. The solution is found in sharing the mundane whenever the opportunity presents itself. My grandfather, for example, taught me how to drive a car. He endured what was in theory endless hours of driving nowhere particularly special. But I expect my grandfather never tired of my teenage driving. I got to assert my independence. He got to support it. And the two of us got to share the mundane. My grandfather died over a decade ago. And my one of my most cherished memories of him was the driving lessons.

And so the other morning, I chose to seize an opportunity to share a mundane part of Philip’s life. As he was heading out to walk to the city bus stop in order to get to work, I asked him if I could walk with him. He was happy to say yes to a companion for the otherwise uneventful walk. But for me, I got to experience a small part of his teenage life. The walk took only five minutes. And then we waited for the bus for another five. We talked, but we didn’t talk about anything particularly interesting. And there were long stretches of silence. When the bus came, I couldn’t help but notice how different it seemed watching him get on a bus to go to work from watching him get on a bus to go to school. If nothing else, he was at least ten years younger than everyone else riding the bus. He seemed to step onto the bus differently. There was no threat of accidently doing something socially inept. He simply got on the bus and the bus simply left.

Alone at the bus stop, I was glad I had elected to take that mundane walk. I will never forget that walk, and I will never forget the image of Philip disappearing into the city bus. I look forward to sharing more mundane parts of Philip’s life, perhaps even more than I look forward to sharing the non-mundane parts of his life.

Taking it in from the Bleachers

There is a unique smell that permeates a high school campus in the springtime. The smell gets especially pungent in the afternoons on and around the athletic fields. It is as if a unique grass grows on high school athletic fields and nowhere else, yet the use of artificial turf does little to deter the emergence of that springtime high school campus aroma. It seems to hold the same on both rural campuses as well as urban campuses. And the afternoon pungency lingers well into evening for any event that draws in parents and other members of the community after hours.

The first day I picked up Philip after lacrosse practice, the smell of the campus and the athletic fields brought me back almost instantly to my own high school decades in the past in a completely different part of the country. It was nearly the same smell. I could hear the lacrosse coaches shouting commands targeted toward the young adolescent male athletic psyches. The inflections Philip’s coaches put into each word echoed the same authority and temperament of my own high school coaches.

I made it a point to attend as many lacrosse games as possible during Philip’s freshman season. To sit on the bleachers for home games, I had to ascend a steep incline that normal erosion would never permit, but earth-moving equipment had nonetheless established in order to ensure level ground for the football-soccer-lacrosse field below the equally level softball field above. For the first lacrosse game, I had to also endure not-yet-mowed thick grass and weeds that had grown up during the intense seasonal rainfall that had ended only a couple weeks before. A parent I recognized jokingly told me to check for ticks when I reached the foot of the bleachers.

I was not expecting to see Philip get much game time as a freshman. Instead I was expecting a token amount of time at the end of each game in which the score was not too close. Early in the season, my expectations were mostly true. Philip and his freshman peers did not see any field time until Hermes was ahead by double digits. But over the course of the season that slowly changed. The first freshmen to see significant game time were Walter and one other particularly large, aggressive football player. What they lacked in core skills, Walter and his freshman football comrade made up for with tenacity and raw determination. Walter was particularly and impressively aggressive. But for Philip in his fifth lacrosse season, seeing Walter regularly drop the ball was a source of some frustration.

Philip’s day came later in the season. The older, more experienced players began to notice Philip’s competence and consistency perhaps two or three weeks before the coaches did. Philip knew the plays, could keep the ball in his net even when double-teamed and had an eye for when to pass for a teammate to score. By the final games of the regular season and all the way to the championship game, Philip was part of the regular varsity line-up rotating into the midfield, normally as center.

It was a slow change I witnessed while drinking in the familiar smells of a springtime high school campus. As Philip’s freshman season unfolded, I remembered knowing players who were like Philip. As freshman they slowly gained the respect of their coaches and teammates. Philip could not claim to be a star, but he was emerging. His position on next year’s varsity line-up was no longer in question.

To me taking it all in from the bleachers, it was the emergence that was so captivating. And when combined with the smell of the campus and my own high school memories it all evoked, I became keenly aware of the ticking clock. Philip has been under our roof for over fifteen years. But in the spring of his eighteenth year, Philip will graduate from Hermes High School and will soon after head off to pursue his adulthood. I want to savor every moment of what remains of Philip’s time under our roof. And somehow, the smell of the Hermes High School campus is part of that savor.