indigo child

dr. destruction is coming on 10 months and i think that has people thinking about preschool. by people i mean folks other than me. i'm not thinking about it because i'm still waiting for this child's mother to come pick him up.
where is that lady, anyway?
at the park the other day i was mindlessly talking to a mother sitting near me. it's a nice day, your daughter's cute, i hate the sand at this place, what's up with the new dog park near the airport. blah blah blah. the kind of chatter that takes up space and time but doesn't really get you anywhere. the kind of chatter, frankly, that i expect from and have come to enjoy at the park.
maybe i was zoning out a little too much, because this lady decided to clobber me with 'what preschools do you have him on the list for?'
not have you thought about it. not have you been to look at any. have you GOTTEN HIM ON LISTS? PLURAL!
um, what?
i thought for a very quick second about lying and saying yes but then i realized i don't know the names of any preschools in a 100 mile radius, so i'd surely look like an idiot when she asked me which ones. and she FOR SURE was going to ask me which ones.
so i just said no, hoping she'd think i was such an idiot, dangerously dumb even, that i no longer was worthy of her company and the conversation could be over.
but that's not the way things work at the park, it seems.
instead, she decided to rattle on about how competitive good preschools are, how most couples go look at them when THEY'RE PREGNANT and how her kid (13 months, mind you, a good year and a half away from preschool) is on four lists or some shit.
oh. how interesting, i say.
why the rush, i asked. i felt annoyed, like horse-fly-buzzing-around-your-head annoyed.
she blabbed on about the reasons as i tuned out. i was just about to excuse myself when she said, 'but the real reason we've been looking so diligently (interesting choice of words, i thought) is because XXX is an indigo child.'
i looked at the kid to see if she was blue. or cross-eyed. or seemed retarded in anyway.
she was scooping shovel fulls of sand into a bucket. once the bucket was full, she'd dump the sand out and start all over. occasionaly she'd grab a fist full and open her hand and stare at it for an extended period of time. she looked perfectly normal.
did i really need to hear what an indigo child is? more importantly, did i need to hear it from this woman?
apparently, i'm a masochist.
indigo children, i learned, are extremely bright, gifted children who have an evolved consciousness and have come here to help change the 'vibrations of our lives' because they have a strong desire to live instinctively. they are our bridge to the future because they are the ones who are going to create one land, one globe, one species. also they have an amazing memory and are easy to recognize because they have bright, clear eyes. sometimes they have a blue aura, but that part is disputable.
the 'vibrations' part is verbatium, by the way.
it all made sense. if you had the jewel of the world, the savior, a little messiah or the next dali lama on your hands, wouldn't you want the very, very, very best preschool, too?
me on the other hand. i just have an average goofy blonde kid who likes to be pushed in a moldy, blue swing and bang his head against things. the best i can hope for is that he gets an ok teacher at public school and doesn't end up in jail.
i looked at her kid again. she put a handful of sand into her mouth.
i'm forever facinated by realities, by our truths - how things that are very real to one person can be complete bullshit to another.
i guess that's why i kept listening. i wanted to see how something so completely absurd to me could be so very, very true to her.
of course, we didn't make it that far. it was way too hot and rarely do i ever reach an epiphany without vodka, tonic, ice and limes.
we parted ways and she seemed happy that we'd met. that was one of us, at least. i'm left having to find another park, one that's sure to be less convenient, to go to.
of course yesterday i called pharida, asking for her advice on preschools. true to herself, she said she was probably going to send sadie to one up the street. it's good, it's cheap, doesn't have too long of a list and is three blocks from our neighborhood.
i trucked up the street yesterday to check it out, all the while thinking, 'this is really something this child's mother should be doing.'