Sandcastles Guarded by Seahorses

There is a public school nestled in downtown Toronto's Regent Park district, an area my sister won't yet drive her BMW Z3 through because she thinks it's too dangerous. Regent Park is subject to the city's latest stab of gentrification. Once in place, she and all her neighbours will likely practice their retail therapy there. By guess of architecture, my method of carbon dating, the school's conception was in the 1920's, an era I imagine to have been prosperous, full of flapper girls and mid-level Capone wannabe's. History is written by Hollywood.

The school yard can't exactly be described as a concrete jungle. A jungle would suggest areas to swing from; high precipices in which to lob objects, be reigned the title King of the Castle, All Else Dirty Rascals. The city block sized area, which I'm sure once had a playground, is presently poured concrete with giant, trench-like cracks which nearly every child hurdles in order to save their mother's lower lumbar. In one small area there is a mowed but never watered thatch of once green grass.

There are:
No colourful tubes to burn thighs itching to slide.
No monkey bars to consider life from a different angle.
No swings to give a child the excitement of flight.
No opportunity to escape or dream of a better life.

Fatty: I don't know if you'll want to come, but...

My darling Fatty, the sweet love of my life, was asked by his mother to come along on a field trip with her class of combined Junior and Senior kindergarten kids. It wasn't a request to be a watchful grown-up or surrogate parent. The design was to take photographs of these kids, later creating a sort of card or commemorative item they could take home. A passing year with physical evidence that at least one good thing had happened to them.



Whether you're trying out your best Bob Fosse inspired Frankenstein routine, or delighted by the first blown bubble you ever tried to capture, but discovered was a little too elusive, it's important to have someone photodocument your life.

I love photographing children. They are the only sect with whom a documenter stands a chance in capturing unabashed fun.

The lessons of guilt, shame and self-consciousness haven't sunk in yet.

Fatty and I went armed with 2 256MB media cards in our respective cameras.



No extra weight was carried home in my bike's basket, but both memory cards were full by day's end.



The field trip's destination was the Beach. The Beach is capitalised because it is not only a habitually raked, sandy oasis reminiscent of tanning stations in one of the Florida's Keys, but it is also a district around town. The area is not exclusive, but the residents are mostly white, fairly affluent and tend never to leave their neighbourhood. The general idiom is We have everything here. Why would we leave? Many people, including the natives, call it The Bubble. Once you're in... urine.

The children Fatty's mom teaches are Regent Park area residents. No parents outside the district request an out-of-district transfer to her school. Fatty's mom could have had her pick of any number of schools in better areas with less occurrences of crime, reported or otherwise. Throughout her career she has chosen inner-city schools because they are where attention is needed the most; where the lack of funding is at best frustrating especially if one is prone to want to help. To make a difference.

Some of the kids have never been to the beach. Have never seen the water.

The children's parents work multiple jobs to try to keep their heads afloat. Try to keep the tax simian off their back. Try to keep their habits and rage unknown, or at least manageable. Many parents send these children off to school with nothing in their bellies, or more insidous, they make their child clutch a dry piece of toast, bitten once, as evidence that they are being provided for. That things are swell at home. That they are fit parents.

Fatty's mom had a created list of requirements pinned to every child's shirt to take home days prior to prepare for the field trip. To stress the importance, all the required supplies were in bold caps:

HAT
SUNSCREEN
EXTRA JACKET
TOWEL
KNAPSACK
LUNCH
WATER

At the long, green, outdoor lunch table there was at least one child whose parent neglected Item #6.

Parent/ Volunteer: Does anyone have an extra sandwich for Moosa?

Moosa, whose imaginary world is incredibly rich and rewarding to make up for the neglect he receives at home.

Moosa: I have a Seahorse in my knapsack.
Fatty's Mom: You do? May I see it?
Moosa: No, not right now.
Fatty's Mom: Well, you know, with Seahorses they need food and water.
Moosa: Oh, there's food and water and a LIGHT!
Fatty's Mom: Oh, well, that's wonderful, then.

Fatty loved Moosa.

Fatty is a natural with children. Particularly with boys. A boy could be 2 or 92 years old. It doesn't matter. They all have a very special affinity towards him. With 4-6 year old kindergarten kids, the affinity is demonstrated by Jet Li high flying kicks and punches and, when thought particularly highly of, the occasional hocking of a lugie is launched.

For 15 years I was scared to death of children. I masked this fear by saying aloud that kids bugged me. They were little irritants, little monsters. But really, I didn't know how to behave around them anymore. I did once. But then I received a local anesthetic at 17 years old. Alone. Shaken. The most violated I'd ever felt. I had life sucked out of me. And an egg salad sandwich afterwards, recompensing my sacrifice.

For a long time I couldn't look at my 18 year old niece because she was a constant reminder of what could have been. What I gave up. What I couldn't possibly have. Beyond not receiving any support, I would have instead received further emotional vanquishment, greater banishment and armfuls more ostracism at home. 17 years old. I couldn't have done it on my own. Not very well, anyway. The strength of my familial web? One sweeping hand could have demolished the clinging trappings of a creature's final imprisonment.

To be accepted and loved by a child feels like the kind of ultimate purity and goodness redolent of God smiling upon me. But how could I be accepted? It wasn't really me I was presenting. It was Me-Trying-Too-Hard. Children, true seers, are repellant of insincerity and exaggerated feeble attempts. Tail between legs, I hung out with the parents more. The consolation prize. And hated every minute of it. And then I was given 8 year old Megan, whom I had a week to get comfortable with. Who fell in love with me as much as I did her. Megan. Daughter of Walter, my second eldest brother who has completely estranged himself from the family.

Walter and his then new family were living in the Rocky mountains. While in Toronto, according to our father, Walter would never make much out of his life. He was a born loser, an embarrassment. Walter was the apple of my eye. Post post-secondary school, Walter made his way west. Clean living to compensate for a filthy past. But it wasn't the memory of the harsh, immobilizing words; it wasn't the repeated physical fights that would often lead to broken glass doors and tissue invisibly scarred for life that caused the final act of divorcing himself from his immediate family. For decades he tried to understand my father and his ways. He too had become a father. He forgave him his injustices and flagrant abusive behaviour in favour of a father's acceptance of a son. Of paternal love. He gained it for a while, too. Until he stopped trying too hard.

Actually, he just stopped trying altogether. All the instances of his father never being there for him, or rather being there but shooting down his every effort, came as a culminated realisation, one in which entailed Walter to give up any false hopes of hearing, just once, "Son, I'm proud of you."

Pride.
It's just a reflection back.
An opportunity for self-congratulation.


Most of the people I am close with grew up not having everything. They were secretly want for many things, but their family's income-predisposition didn't allow for trips to Disneyland or the best shoes or birthdays at Chuck E. Cheese. I think kids that don't have everything, but do have more than just the basic requirements (healthy food, decent shelter, clean clothes and an occasional glance from the parents), can grow up with more of a sense of wonder, potential joy and far more general appreciation than kids who had everything.



When Fatty was doing one of his astounding magic tricks for a couple of >4' lads, though delighted, they never pestered him to do it again. Do it again! They didn't ask. They were simply happy with what he gave them.

I'd asked my future mother-in-law if she had favourites in her classroom. Yes, she had. I don't think it's right to choose favourites, mostly because I hate the idea of a parent being more partial to one child over another, but I suppose it's human. That's how we distinguish best friends from mere acquaintances, I guess. I honestly thought I could like all the children equally.



This is Heron.
She will grow to be tall and languid like the bird.
She considers everything.
And if she doesn't like it, she'll let you know.
After we rolled around on a grassy slope, she came around and hugged my neck from behind.
At the swings, she got dinged in the head.
She came to me.
I knew I probably shouldn't have done it. It probably wasn't the correct thing to do. Like how you don't see kids riding on bicycle handlebars very much these days, I couldn't help myself.

I hugged her.
And kissed her boo boo.

Heron was my favourite.
She made my ovaries hurt.

I watched Fatty's mom throughout the day. Darting eyes to make sure everyone was safe. Individual attention was given to every child. She is a deeply caring crusader, a child's rights supporter, a musician, a wonderful storyteller who reduced both myself and her son to tears, one hell of an educator and she takes shit from no parent. I haven't met someone this extraordinary for a very long time. She is my newest hero.



And she's always been Fatty's.

I learned that with further cut-backs, Fatty's mom has been rendered assistant-free. In addition to a lack of funding for books, toys and other learning materials, she is reliant on volunteers for anything they could possibly spare. Her home's basement is filled with teaching materials she's purchased out of her own pocket.

She was once scared of children too. But she learned just to be herself. And, to me, she made it into the top percentile of mothers just by keeping Santa Claus real until Fatty was about 12.

Don't worry, the world will dispel any myth. Any magic.

Fatty and I are bringing in our new $50 DVD player with a prepared photo slide show for the kids to watch on their last class before school's out for summer. Our fine collection of smiling faces and diligent sandcastle makers.

It will mark the beginning of my volunteer work with my newest hero.