My son taught me how to write life’s next act

My son gave me an early Christmas present this year. He doesn’t know that he gave it to me, though.

He is an enthusiastic kid. He dives into things and makes them his own, and, rather than jump from interest to interest, he tends to hold on to those interests in many different ways.

When we watched “The Lord of the Rings” movies and then read the books, he was utterly enthralled by Tolkien’s world. He especially liked the scene in “The Return of the King” movie where the forces of good, led by Aragorn, gather at the Black Gate of Mordor for a final showdown. Aragorn gives a rousing prebattle speech that my son tried to imitate later on in our yard. Our dog was not as inspired as the armies of Rohan and Gondor, much to my son’s dismay.

Later, he wrote his own version of the trilogy that he called “Lord of the Jewels,” which was largely a rewrite with new names and jewels instead of a ring. He was quite annoyed when we started reading “The Silmarillion” and he learned that Tolkien had beaten him to the punch with magic jewels.

This wildly creative expression finds inspiration in many different places. As I wrote last month, he loved the production of “Bright Star” put on by Bethel Parks and Rec, so much so that we decided to go see Bethel High School’s “A Christmas Carol.” He found Scrooge to be so much fun (played by senior Jack Boucher) that he tried imitating his crochety and amazingly physical delivery.

We wrapped up our holiday dramatics by attending “The Nutcracker,” put on by the Danbury Music Center at Danbury High School. My son was mesmerized by the spectacle, especially during Act I. The show finished long after his bedtime, however, so his remarks on the second act were “There sure is a lot of dancing.” Nevertheless, he found inspiration here, too, flailing around the house for days afterward in something that might be called dancing if you’re in a charitable mood.

Lately he has taken all of his theater experiences together and has be writing a musical. At least I think it’s a musical, because he has been singing every evening as he scribbles his ideas down. The songs are ... loud. They have a crazy exuberance, though, that we all really need right now.

This exuberance made me think of my students, who, at the end of the semester were utterly exhausted. They were done. They noted that their senior years in high school were disrupted by the pandemic, and then their early experiences in college were anything but traditional. They feel they have missed out.

My son’s lesson — and the gift he has given me — is a story of resilience and perspective. My wife and I have worried about how the pandemic-addled world is affecting him, but he seems to be largely OK. Sometimes he forgets to take his mask off when he climbs off the bus, because masks, in the final analysis, are not really a huge deal.

We long to return to a “normal” world, but we forget that a lot of us were wishing good riddance to a terrible year at this point in 2019, and 2018, and 2017... and so on. I think many of us make the mistake of seeing current events as if they were the climactic moment in some apocalyptic story when they are just the latest act in some outrageously ludicrous play. My son is writing the lyrics for the next act at this very moment.