The imaginary virus that was supposed to “disappear, like magic” has kept me from spending time with my first two grandchildren. I take vicarious pleasure in their accomplishments: My granddaughter Imani in soccer and music and my grandson Xavion in academics and basketball. Imani has been accepted into the private school from which her brother will graduate in June, and Xavion is sifting through acceptance offers from schools such as RIT, Drexel, and Rutgers. Time has flown, and I still remember when the two of them were born, 17 and 14 years ago. And for now, I am marking time with their almost 4-year-old cousin, Myah, who has an amusing take on the concept of “time.”
In a recent conversation with her mother and me, Myah told a tale about something that happened “last night.” Her mother and I both fainted onto the floor, for this was a rare reference to a recent moment. For Myah, any time that preceded the current moment was “last year.” Lauren and I, currently roommates, are openly amused to hear her daughter refer to having done something “last year,” when we know that the occasion was the previous day, previous night, or previous week. For Myah, it is always, “last year.”
One of the ways that Myah learned how to count was by listening to and parroting me as I walked up and down twelve steps to and from the basement with her in my arms, counting each step, in turn. She knows most of the primary colors and some of the secondary, and she has a good grasp of shapes. As I wrote in “The Blossoming Of Language,” she can communicate in an informed and intelligent way. She asks questions and makes deductions. She likes to page through my bird books, looking for the owls, and recently, the wood grouse. She digs in the garden with her mother, looking for slugs and grubs and this summer, she helped Clop (me) harvest the puny few tomatoes that I planted too late in the season. But she has yet to master the concept of time.
“Do you remember when we made the blanket into water, last year?” We were in the space that I occupy in the basement and Myah was looking to take out the billiard balls that she plays with on occasion. She wanted to shoot the cue into a 9-ball rack, but I vetoed assembling a cue stick and suggested that she hand-roll the cue ball into the rack. “I did that last year!” she exclaimed. For a short period, she had Wednesday as her personal day and ever more briefly, Friday. But her go-to time frame is “last year.”
I’m not sure how to help her understand the difference between last night, yesterday and last year. She understands that breakfast is eaten in the morning, lunch in the afternoon, and dinner in the evening, though morning is the only time specifically identified. I will admit to some amusement about her use of “last year.” I think of songs with time as a theme, like the Chambers Brothers and the cowbell ringing in “Time Has Come Today,” or the band Chicago asking, “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?” and Eva Cassidy’s magnificent cover of Cindy Lauper’s “Time After Time,” and wonder why there are not many songs with “last year” as a theme.
Some teachers will help Myah with how far Monday is from Tuesday, or Friday, and what a week is, and a month and a year. But I will remember all the joys we shared, “last year.”
cjon3acd@att.net