Gifts for an Inscrutable Age

I know a lot of children under the age of five. After that, they get a little vague to me. I know the month by month adventure up until reading age so thoroughly that my occasional observations of older children seem pretty inconclusive. I know I was once between the ages of six and twelve, but I don't remember it very well; instead I remember Island of the Blue Dolphins and Are You There God, It's Me Margaret and Anne of Green Gables. I was reading. What other children do or think or feel or like, I'm still not sure about.

But there are a couple of them who I am fond of. A month ago my very sophisticated twelve-year-old friend Leo melted my heart by saying that if he ever grew up to be very very rich he would have a whole jar of guitar picks in every room of his house. The moderate nature of this aspiration seemed so childlike, and yet he usually seems quite grown up (at least to me.) So Scott and I decided to help him toward his goal a little. Scott ventured out to the guitar pick stores to see how many we could reasonably get, being not at all very very rich ourselves, and then I found a Moleskine composing notebook I included, just in case. I found the above music-themed fabric, which I'm hoping is more rock and roll than lame, and made a little pouch for it all so as to better hold on to his picks when traveling.


His nine-year-old sister Fiona had mentioned that she wanted either to be an actress (of course) or a reporter or an author. She's well on her way with the acting career, but we felt, naturally, that we should foster the writing bit. I discovered that they have just brought out Moleskines in bright pink, and we bought two, one for a journal (adventures and secrets) and the other for a writing notebook (important thoughts, overheard conversations, new words, drafts of stories). We also bought a reporter's notebook (big stories and breaking news). And I sewed a little bag for her as well, after spending about an hour at Fabric Depot, trying to channel the aesthetic of a girl so big as nine. We went perhaps a bit overboard supporting the institution of Moleskine, but I think there's something powerful in taking children's aspirations seriously, and in giving them adult-quality tools.


All this made me think there might be some redeeming aspects to that long stretch between preschool and adolescence, and that perhaps we won't have to send any children we have to boarding school for those years after all. As long as they let me sew for them.

A technical note: I tried fusible velcro for the first time, and was very disappointed. It pulled away from the fabric when I tried to open the bags. I have to admit though that I bought it by the yard and so the packaging (with the directions) stayed at the store. I think I probably did it right... but hard to say.