"Your difference is your strength, and your strength is your gift to the world."
My daughter Azalea, an elementary schooler, is very sweet and a shining example of the values I drill into her: the AIR Equation, the 3-part formula which states that Happiness = Acceptance + Inspiration + Respect. Born and raised in a neighborhood full of ex-cons and Type-A athletes, I struggle at times on what’s the right mixture of sweetness for her.
My wife says our daughter has a loving softness to her. “Too loving,” many admirers say, some who don’t know her from Eve as they reluctantly undo her hug of their necks. “Watch her. She’s too kind to strangers.” She accepts and befriends everyone: whites, blacks, the popular, misfits, bullies, the bullied, tall, short, girls, boys, the geeks, the meek. That’s Azalea, like her namesake plant that flowers in dry soil, looking to spread happiness in the most infertile places. This is why what she does later is so horrifying.
It’s Sunday. I’m reading the newspaper in my reclining love seat while she plays on the living room floor. I relive childhood through my two kids every day. The warm fuzzies get me as I listen to her talk for her dolls and act like the grown-up to them as she plays parent, teacher, or cashier.
Like a spy I covertly peel back the newspaper, turning my head so that my eye is the first thing to ease into view. Her dolls sit in rows in a make-believe classroom with invisible desks and a wood-panel chalkboard which is our living room wall. Barbie teaches class. Soon, Azalea rolls her toy Volkswagen Bus to the school and instructs the dolls on where to sit. She probably doesn’t realize she’s letting the cuter ones on first.
My cartoonist side notices this right away, how characters are made cuter by giving them a very small nose (or none at all) like the Bratz doll in the front seat and Hello Kitty peeking through the side window. Her favorite doll, a teddy bear, towers over everyone--even the bus. I return to the Real Estate section.
I hear grunting like a kid pushing a tight Tinkertoy in place. I smile at her budding determination and relax to a travel article photo.
Azalea’s grunting morphs into growling. Suddenly, I hear her banging on the floor with such ferocity that I can feel the vibrations through the love seat. I check on her. She’s vividly unhappy, body slamming her favorite teddy bear!
I dash to her. “Why are you beating him?”
“He doesn’t want to play with me anymore. I want him to ride with us but he won’t obey. He won’t get all the way inside.”
“He’s too tall to fit in.”
Without warning, she lunges for the bear. She grunts and stuffs him in with the classic tongue-out-to-the-side earnest you see in staged pictures of hard-working kids but rarely see in real life. He’s in thigh-high and seems set on going no further. She pries the bear out and marches him to the kitchen trash can.
I run to beat her there. “He can’t help his size. Don’t beat him up for it. He really wants to play with you.” I figure out an angle for the AIR Equation. “Hey, you know how Daddy gets lost and uses his GPS system in the car?”
She nods and wipes a tear from her red face.
I point at the ceiling. “It talks to a big satellite in the sky that can see where I’m headed and tell me the best way to get where I need to go. Well, your teddy bear can do the same thing for you and your friends. Put him on the roof where he can be at his best, able to see what others can’t and save you all from getting lost.”
The red drains from her face as if her opening smiling mouth is a release valve. She pulls the bear into her bosom, giving him her patented hug around the neck.
I read the magazine section now. Azalea drives her dolls around the house. Her teddy bear sits like a guru on the roof. She asks him how to get somewhere because she’s never been down this road before, and he instructs her.
Plus Sign Productions conducts behavioral and market research, consulting, training, speaker engagements, personal life coaching, and publications on human resources and motivational concerns. The organization deals with clients ranging from Fortune 500 companies to individuals. It runs www.AIRequation.org as a public service.
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on Tuesday, August 11th, 2009 at 2:34 pm and is filed under Hps Grow Light.
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