I came home from work yesterday and was sitting with Twin J on the floor playing silly chess (that is a topic for another post). I noticed he had colored his arm -- or someone had. This is not an unusual event in our house, though it did seem a bit more focused and intentional than the usual random human-canvas approach our youngest has. During a break in the intense game I asked about the art and I got this response: It's a machine. It fills people up with what they need/or he wants. This may sound odd to you, but there is history here. Let me explain.
When the twins were younger and I put them to bed, I would read them stories. Then, after the lights were out, I would make up a story of two, often putting them in as characters. This is not uncommon for parents. Also, not uncommon for parents is to be so utterly exhausted at the end of a day of chasing twin 3-year olds around the house, neighborhood, park that the parents falls asleep faster than the twins, or at least wants to. So, on occasion I would try to beg off from telling a story because I didn't have the creativity or will to make up a story and/or retell one I had previously made up. In our house there was a stiff penalty for not being able to retell a story I had made up recently while in a near comatose state of exhaustion.
So on those nights, I would tell the boys that I was all out of stories. Enter the machine. The boys claimed they could refill me with ideas/energy/or whatever else was needed to enable me to tell a story and allow them to stay up longer. It's kind of like refilling a gas tank with imagination. Sometimes it worked; sometimes it didn't. Occasionally over the past couple of year, the notion of filling someone (usually me) with whatever was needed to get the twins what they wanted has resurfaced. Most recently it has had to do with energy to fling the boys about the house, hold them upside down, or simply hold them while I walk around the house and they reach out with their legs and arms to walls, cupboard pulls or anything else that might throw me off-balance or knock things off a shelf or wall.
So yesterday I came home to the machine colored on my son's arm. Essentially, my son was telling me he was a cyborg. He was ready to give me whatever I needed so I could swing him around in my shoulders. I admit it made me laugh. I lost the game of silly chess (though I always do). It amazed me about his creativity and willingness to involve his body in such an endeavor -- without hesitation. Maybe Kevin Warwick or Wafaa Bilal could use some input from a deeply imaginative mind.
