| The Art of Stimulation |
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It looks as if there are pressing reasons for me to start reading my own oeuvre. All kinds of things are happening around me that I feel I had already subjected to adequate analysis and provided with pointers on how to handle them. And yet I have to admit that whenever I tell myself that I am dealing with my daughter in an educationally responsible fashion, more often than not it seems to be me rather than her benefiting from the learning curve. Before me sits a droopy-looking plant in a small terracotta flowerpot. The other day my daughter was seeking inspiration from me for the talk she had to give in class on the theme of "Nature". Sensible parent that I am, I tried sparking her interest by mentioning ants and herons, then thought of weeds and proceeded by taking a cutting from the thistle that grows by our front door. Sometimes I could kick myself - how on earth could a child that is discovering the world be expected to start by appreciating the beauty of the unpretentious? Nevertheless she generously listened carefully to everything I had to say. The next couple of days saw the topic of her talk being dramatically tweaked, at a rate which even bindweed would have had trouble matching. I undergo my punishment in a state-of-the-art carousel, wedged inside a dinky car that makes furious pitching and swaying movements, frightened to death not so much because of the risk that it might become undone (although it would have been this had it not been something else) but because I'm convinced that my daughter is about to be catapulted overboard. Hanging on to my seat like grim death, I put my left arm around her with all my strength. Ouch, my daughter says, what's the matter, you're pinching me. Of course I am: I am using my right arm in a supreme effort to secure my own 12 stone while my left arm is trying to strike a balance between squashing my daughter and saving her life. However, I'm convinced that she will at some future juncture be giving a talk on silence in the big city, and we'll definitely be able to forego the fairground for that. |