A Magical Boy

July 22, 2010

Dickon. In my blog, I call him Dickon after the magical boy in The Secret Garden. Nature opens herself to Dickon and shares with him all her secrets. A fox sits on his shoulder and a crow flies beside him accompanying him on his journeys over the moor. Dickon tells Mary that he will keep her secret safe – just as he keeps safe the location of every bird’s nest on the moor.

In real life, the boy I call Dickon is my son, and he is a magical boy – although at 25, “young man” would be a more accurate term. Like Dickon in the Secret Garden, animals are drawn to him. As a boy, our cat would sleep on the top of his head. I would have pushed the cat aside, but Dickon just let her sleep there. Our dog would sleep with all the kids, but managed somehow to spend twice as much time in Dickon’s bed than in any other.

Being Dickon’s Mom was enough to give me grey hairs at 40. Dickon is a born peace-maker and will not engage in any type of conflict. You can try to goad him, rant and rave, or tie yourself in knots, but he will not engage you in conflict whatever you do. I have sometimes been called “stubborn” but I readily acknowledge that I have met my master in the arena of stubbornness, and his name is Dickon. Now you may think “OK, this is good. He won’t fight, he won’t argue, what could be better?” But that’s because you think that if he doesn’t argue, he’s docile, he does as he should. Oh no, I didn’t say that! He does precisely what he wants, and he doesn’t argue about it, end of story. And one of the things he wants is to sleep late. Another is to take a long shower in the morning. The fact that he’s enrolled in a high school 2 bus rides across town doesn’t change the fact that he wants to sleep late, take a long shower, and take his time. Did you know that some kids consider the prospect of expulsion from school to be an inducement? This is quite a divergent mindset from my own schoolgirl thinking that led to straight A’s and a college scholarship. I did my ineffectual best to comply with the laws of our state and get my child to school every day on time. I’d knock on his door in the morning, although he had a perfectly working alarm clock. I’d turn off the hot water at the water heater to get him out of the shower. I even occasionally drove him to meet the second bus when he’d missed the first one. And when the school threatened me with citation, I told them that he was bigger than me and stronger than me, and that I couldn’t make him do anything.

Now that you know how obstinate he can be, maybe you’re thinking he’s a bit of an unpleasant person. But no, actually, he’s a magical boy. His magic is partly in his sweetness, his calmness, his deep there-ness that’s so soothing. People as well as animals like to be around this man of few words. The words he does say are finely chiseled, like minimalist poetry. His drawings are like his words – spare. Just a few lines, maybe the contour of a face and a smile, that bring out a wealth of expression. Sometimes people tell me that Dickon won’t talk to them. I tell them that Dickon refuses to chit-chat. He will only talk if one of you – and hopefully both of you – are passionate about the subject. He certainly won’t talk for your convenience or to fill up space.

Here’s a hint: to engage his passion, talk about music. One time a psychic tuned into him, just knowing his name, age and that he is my son. She said “Oh, my! Music is flowing from his soul.” I thought “Yes, beautiful music from a beautiful soul.”

It has been one of the privileges of my life to be Dickon’s mother and to give him some of the love and support he needed as a child. I spent many hours reading him stories and later listening to stories of his invention. I still have maps of enchanted lands that he created. I always made sure that he had his own room because his soul required solitude – even if that room was just a big walk-in closet converted into a bedroom. He never needed much space, but he needed alone time. Today it gives me joy to think of him living near the hot springs resort and working on that beautiful property and within the vibration of expansion there. A magical place and a fitting place for a magical boy.