ON BRAVERY

He and I are not so different.

Last night I went over to my sister's to pick up a tarp, a big ass green plastic hood that will keep our wood dry and thereby help to keep us warm this winter. How we've had to baby our firewood is a whole post unto itself. We've had to cradle each piece in our hands like a loaf of bread, move it close to fire, turn it as it dries, rise it almost to our lips to check it for warmth. "You dry enough?" we question it with hopeful apprehension. And when it whispers, "yesss" into our palms, we crank open the door and throw it into the flames. Then we begin with the next block of wood, over and over and over again, until spring. This year we'll very unceremoniously simply keep it dry under a gaudy plastic hood made in China. No one can tell me that we're not (lazily) reliant on a world economy.

But that's not the story. I came home with the tarp. My husband and I wrapped the wood, a gift to ourselves for this long winter to come. Then I clipped my butt quickly in behind our front door to save it from the nip of the settling frost. It was like I'd been gone for days, instead of 20 minutes, both my kids jumping like Mexican jumping beans under a hot light. "Mom, mom, mom! What do you think Matt Costa looks like? Old or young? Ugly or not? What, what, what?" My daughter dragging me to the computer to reveal a dark haired, young sultry man who begs to be loved singing on the railroad tracks, singing in a parka. Ohhh, she got my attention. "He's really, cute," I said to my computer screen. My daughter "NNNnaaaawwweed," like a drunk sailor and insisted that he was old, ugly and much too hairy.

And then my son's shorter jumping caught my eye. He was still hopping for my attention. "Mom, mom, MOM! Remember Joey's skateboard in the tree, theoneIwant, andit'sbeen hangingthereformonths and Ihaven'tbeenbraveenoughtoask? Remember?"

"Yes, son, I remember."

"Well, I asked him. I ASKED him mom, and he gave it to me. Just like that. He gave it to me and I have it now and dad's going to put my wheels on it this weekend."

"Wow," I answered, shaking my daughter off my arm so that I could take the coat off that I was still wearing. "That's great."

"No mom, you don't understand. I ASKED HIM! EVEN THOUGH I WAS SCARED, I asked him! And he said yes."

I dropped down to his level and looked him in the eye. "I understand," I said. "And now that I understand, I'm so very proud of you."

He has watched covetously for months from the corner of our yard as the broken shell of a skateboard moved in the trees like wind chimes in our neighbour's yard. He had given up trying to use his own too-small skateboard anymore, except for tricks of the foot. He watched that old and damaged skateboard, plywood barely in its previous form, for months, afraid to ask for it. I wouldn't do it for him.

I know my son. I know him well. I'm so proud that he finally asked, even though he remained afraid to his core. There's a lesson in here, one I'm never allowed to stop learning.