Bone Idol 

My mother worshiped me when I was a child. She called me bone idol. I don’t know why she didn’t refer to be as a gold idol or a demigod. But there you are, children can’t fathom the depths of mothers’ minds.

I was always perplexed at her seeming frustration with me. “You just don’t push yourself,” she would say. It was odd that she would talk to a minor deity in this way. I wasn’t clear about why pushing, or pulling for that matter, was a good idea. And why push myself? How does one push oneself? The phrase was a conundrum.

Perhaps it was a Zen koan? I had read about the one hand clapping. You were supposed to meditate on the idea, and, if you did it right, you would become enlightened. I’m not sure if being enlightened is good for schoolboys but my mother obviously was dropping subtle hints. I was a sensitive child and could pick up a subtle hint in a flash. But I wasn’t always sure what the hint meant.

I spent long hours in my bedroom pondering how one could push oneself. I applied myself diligently.

The optimum time for thinking is the morning. The morning is best experienced from beneath the covers. There is no time like quiet of the morning. Outside, dew-covered lawns, empty streets, and distant good-humored birdsong: in other words, sweetness and light. This is the best time to exercise brainpower.

Naturally the thing is to get comfortable and relaxed. And, not wishing to tax myself too much (never a good idea), I would, on occasion, nod back off to sleep. But scientists tell us; sleep makes us intelligent, and even creative. So this sort of rumination could take some time. For a really demanding bit of thinking it could take all morning. Being a conscientious sort of child, I didn’t want to rush.

I would be concentrating on these cerebral problems when my mother would take into her head to vacuum the carpet outside my bedroom door. The morning was not really her best time. She would bang the vacuum cleaner against my door and make the very devil of a racket. I put this down to poor motor coordination skills on her part. If she had taken the time to become enlightened, she might have had more self-awareness.

Try as I might to explain how I needed repose, my mother seemed unable to really take in what I was saying. But, even if she showed some vexation toward me, I knew she worshipped me and that’s what counts.

My school reports were fairly consistent. Effort was my weakness. They don’t make it easy for you at school. We had geography, mathematics and the like, but no class on effort. Nevertheless, the school didn’t rate me very highly in this nebulous subject. How can they rate you on something they don’t teach? It seems very unfair.

Mystifying as ever, my mother, told me that hard work never hurt anyone. Now she was completely wrong on this one. I had found a book in the school library that quoted a Russian proverb saying that all hard work gives you is a bent back. And another brilliant observation came to mind, if hard work never hurt anyone why do they have workers’ compensation? You can tell I had a razor like mind. But it is disconcerting, when one’s maternal parent is so bereft of the facts. It doesn’t instill confidence.

But being a natural thinker, I pondered why others in my class did so much better than me.

Some children are naturally gifted in some areas but are deficient in others. If I was not endowed with effort then perhaps there was another way. I was about ten years old when this thought occurred to me.

I had taken to thinking deep thoughts. My friend Terry, who lived down the road, was also a deep thinker. We decided to model ourselves after Sherlock Holmes. He didn’t seem to go in for effort. A few puffs on his pipe and he could solve any mystery. Surely this was the way to find an alternative to effort.

Naturally, we would have to take up smoking a pipe. We knew it would make us sophisticated, thoughtful, and mature.

Tobacco posed a problem for us. It was a difficult commodity to obtain for young boys in our small village. The shopkeepers knew who we were and they knew our parents. We decided to make do with tea. Tea of course was always in plentiful supply. I’m not sure how we came to own our briar pipes, but we did.

We decided to have our first tea-smoking experience when the house was empty. You can see that I was doing well with logic. We had some discussion as to whether we should blow or suck. I was for sucking, but Terry insisted on blowing.

On the count of three, we tried our methods. In the next instant, my bedroom filled with smoke. I was coughing and spluttering, and Terry’s eyes were wide with fear as he saw the entire lighted contents of his pipe launch towards the ceiling.

It was unfortunate that my mother had forgotten her jacket and had chosen this moment to return. Normally a calm and placid woman, she seemed most agitated at my coughing and spluttering and Terry’s frantic attempts to put out burning tea. She certainly used a lot words. She seemed to forget about my god-like status as an idol, bone or otherwise.

We gave up smoking tea. We were fire hazards.

Copyright 2006 Christopher Richards