have an edge

Jispa’s composition book is the eagerly awaited one for me. She is supposed to keep her books at school. From time to time her teacher sends a book in rotation home. This is for the parent to sign. I care little about the math and social science or the language books.
Till last year they had the class creative writing. This year onwards it’s called composition. I have always encouraged her to write nice and interesting stuff and sometimes she does manage some really nifty writing. The book is also worth reading as it has one ruled side and one blank side. At her age you are supposed to write on one side and use the other to draw the topic. Both of them are interesting to lok at. Jasmine has been saving her books from all the years and I am sure this one will be the most interesting to see after she’s grown up. Yesterday jasmine informed me that the composition book had arrived. I went through the essays she had to write. Interesting stuff. One essay she was supposed to write was on a shiny new bicycle. She wrote the usual stuff till suddenly she wrote something bang in the middle of the essay… “oops, I forgot to introduce myself. I am Jispa. Ok now where was I? ah, now I remember” and then she continued her story.
I was pretty intrigued by that. It was funny and it came up smack in the middle of the essay. The teacher had taken her red pen and marked a line right through it. as she was asleep by then, I made a mental note to ask her about it the next day.
Today while dropping her off in the car I asked her about it. “you wrote those lines in your essay, the one that said ‘oops I forgot to….’. Your teacher scratched them out?” “Ya”. “But don’t bother I thought they were pretty cool. How did you think of them?”. I have learnt over a period of time to ask her for her inspiration for a lot of things. She reads a lot and she observes a lot. She also retains her learnings and what hse likes in her brains and keeps it in a neural cupboard for later use. So anything she does interesting I ask her. Either she will tell me where she learnt it from or she will tell m “brain”. Then I ask her the logic and she will explain many times, how she got to the point.
This time around she said “I got them from geronimo the mouse. In one of his stories he says ‘opps, I forgot to … (right up to) ... oh now I remember’. So I thought I will put it in the composition. I thought it was very creative” She said the last lines with a little bit of dejection, just a faint little bit. I answered “I thought that was pretty creative. I rally did”
Well according to me it was creative. It was a nice break to the narrative. It did not really matter and I guess I know why the teacher scratched it out. I don’t think she might be yet liberal enough to allow that in. And of course, this year onwards, they have named it composition class and not creative writing.
Jispa now you will slowly see the effort of everyone to straight jacket you. They will slowly be less tolerable of all your edges and your tangents. They will cease to understand them. They will slowly sand paper you to a smooth finish. Till you grow independent you might not be able to really resist. It might be a question of ten or even fifteen years more for you. There is very little we can do in this. I can only tell you that hold your edges inside of you. Slowly as you grow independent you will allowed to bare them. Bare them in style, in power and with confidence. Then only will they accept you or even less, be willing to tolerate it.
I too have become more edgy over the last few years. Till then I was not even allowed to be edgy. The walls around you are pretty tight. Now the only places I am allowed to is where I hold some power some control.
You need to fight back but you also need to know which fights to pick. Some define you some don’t. Choose. It’s not about perceived importance it’s about what you really want to do.
One fight I picked was yesterday. I like jumping on the bed. I have always like running across the bed instead of walking across it to get to the other side. So now its one and two steps to get to the other side. Jispa has been doing that and been getting jammed for it by Jasmine. Jasmine is right. It does spoil the bed and she is the one making it. But I love it to do it too much. Now when Jasmine saw me do it, she chided me. At first I heard her and said sorry. Yesterday I did it again. Jasmine caught me and chided me again. This time I pushed back. “Sorry. All my life I loved doing it. My mom always stopped me. I still love doing it. And you have a bed cover for that reason. And my legs are clean. So I am doing it nevertheless.”
I like stepping on the bed. I see no great reason why it should not be done. The bed spread in on and the little it gets shifted is not an issue. It’s not like we have someone that will see it a little less neat and give us negative marks. So this is the little edge that I would like to retain. There is a lot else that I have smoothened out. Choose your edges. They are your edges. Keep them.