Laundry. Firehouse. Email. The list of things I need to do tonight. As I repeated this list aloud, I noticed the rhythm of it. It’s simple and absolute. The process of jumping from one to the next doesn’t allow for questions of what if, how, when.
Then I realized why it seemed so familiar. The rhythm caught in my head was that of a popular cartoon character, Dora. I have watched children I babysit grow up to her. They thrive on her audience interaction. Just last week, a child I have known since his birth was answering her back and telling me all the answers she asked. At three years of age, it was the first time I have seen him so active with the show. (After the show, we even acted out parts of the episode.)
Emily Donoghue also writes about a boy in love with Dora. Her boy, Jack, is trapped in a room with his mother. He has spent his whole life here. The room measures 11’ x 11’ and has the bare necessities. Old Man Nick has kept them here Jack’s entire life. To Jack, this is the world.
Despite being surrounded by four encasing walls, Jack’s mother finds the strength to make his world all it can be and more. Old Man Nick allows them a television by which Jack watches the TV people. Through this portal Jack befriends Dora among others.
Without knowing any humans other than his mother (he hides when Old Man Nick is around), Jack relies on his television friends to carry him through. His mother relies on him to carry her through. She continues to live everyday because of Jack. They escape daily in his young, wild imagination and her want of normalcy.
They have their rituals to help knock down their walls. They eat and pray. They play physical games, like track and corpse, and read endlessly, like Alice in Wonderland again and again. His mother uses Jack’s comfort with ritual and love of Dora to aid them in their escape.
During their attempted escape, Jack constantly falls back to his repetition. One word each, one word at a time. I won’t tell you the words, nor if they escape as not to spoil it. However, the repetition, the rhythm gives him comfort. It is what holds him together when his mother can’t.
It is great for Jack, or any of us to have this abstract to fall back on. It is like having your favorite stuffed animal, blanket, or remote with you at the hardest times. When the world changes and the walls come down Jack catatonically repeats his words, counts his teeth, and takes in the stories and surroundings.
With the mind occupied the eyes can take in the necessary and leave the rest to guess. Questions don’t have time to form and we search for the familiar things, like Sunday Treat. We rely on the rhythm to keep our world absolute and simple. For it is when the repetition stops we feel like we are bumping around in the back of a pickup traveling down a country road. At any second we could fall out. Especially if the driver stops quick…
Sunday, January 2, 2011
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