One chilly evening in September, stepping outside into the lane at dusk for a breath of fresh air, I encountered a cozy trio: a little blond boy on his trike who lived around the corner, the boy’s grandfather, and my neighbor, a man about my age, in his early 60s. The boy, Martín, was pedaling in circles and naming wild animals that he’d learned in school that day, and my neighbor was quizzing him on the animals’ English names. When I greeted them, my neighbor told Martín, “Ask Clellan! Clellan knows!” León, Martín said, and I said, lion. Jabalina, he said, and I answered, boar. My neighbor and the grandfather played along, either asking Martín to affirm my answer or repeat it, or both. Soon enough, Martín grew tired despite our enthusiasm and pedaled off toward home, his grandfather following closely.
That left me with my neighbor. We exchanged the usual comments about how bright the boy was, how energetic. How much children learn, and how fast. English already in kindergarten! Soon our talk turned to the weather, and I mentioned that I’d called a bricklayer about fixing my fireplace. The workman had already come to have a look and seemed very nice, I said. I’d gotten his name and number from another neighbor.
“I don’t know him. Is he young?”
“Well,” I said. “Not young like 30, but maybe young like 40.”
We both laughed. My neighbor said that his nephew was already nearing 50. He shook his head. Was he remembering a time when his nephew was a young man while he himself was a slightly older young man, with a young son of his own? My neighbor’s son is halfway through his 20s, just like my younger son. My older son is closer to 30 than to 20. I shook my head too. The young are not so young anymore. The young are catching up.
After saying goodnight and going back inside, I recalled a fall afternoon 20 years earlier when my boyfriend at the time, about 40 years old then, and his daughter, about four, were over at my place with my two sons and me. We were all down in the field below my house, picking apples for the donkey I owned. My boyfriend showed the children how to hold an apple in their palm, not between their fingers. “Like this,” he said, extending an apple in his opened hand to the donkey.
My sons already knew to keep their fingers out of the way when feeding the donkey, but my boyfriend’s daughter was new to this. She watched wide-eyed as the donkey, with quivering velvety lips, took the apple into its mouth. “Do you want to try?” asked her father. She took a tentative step closer and put her hand out, an apple balanced on her palm. The donkey lowered its head and lifted the apple away, and she yanked her hand back. She turned to look up at her dad, holding her hand up, fingers spread, as if a miracle had occurred. Her smile was radiant. “I want to be a vet,” she said, “just like you.”
“You can be anything you want,” he answered.
Over the years, I heard him tell her the same thing on several occasions. His manner was always calm, his voice matter-of-fact, not like the voice of someone with a wonderful secret to share, but of someone simply pointing out the facts of a situation. A calendar to show the days left before an event, a clock to show the hours remaining, a forecast to tell you the weather to expect, a closet full of clothes to outfit you as anything you wanted to be. “You see?” he seemed to be saying. “Look. Every possibility. Right here. Anything you want.” He didn’t also say, “Clear skies as far as you can see,” but he meant something like that too. You want your child to see open horizons, not barriers and obstacles.
But even squinting, my boyfriend’s daughter might not have been able to read the time, or understand how fast it was passing. She might have tried on costumes that didn’t fit. Maybe no piece of clothing would. It was a vet she’d said she wanted to be, like her dad, but over the years she showed no particular aptitude for science and no particular interest in animals. She was a mediocre student. Not every possibility is open to everyone, and the good that a parent desires for a child is not necessarily within reach, no matter how often the parent repeats the phrase that you can do or be whatever you want, or that imagination is the only limitation. Limitations can block one at every turn.
One of the biggest limitations is the storm of fears and doubts swirling within a person. Often a well-wisher will dismiss those fears with the phrase, “It’s all in your head.” Some people might turn a blizzard into a flurry by insisting the weather is nothing to worry about, but just as likely in my experience is the persistence of the private storm. You can argue all you want—and you might be right—that if people so wanted, they could lower their head and push obstinately through to better weather. But if a person doesn’t want to badly enough? Not wanting to do something badly enough, not having drive, is a tremendous problem. Wanting to is like a rope strung between the house and the barn for those blizzards that wipe everything off the horizon. If you venture out without that safety line, it could mean your death. Indeed, without drive, you may never step out into the weather of the world at all. Because you know you will stumble and fall and lose your way if you do, and if you survive, it will only be to come crawling back to the house, the livestock left to die, and you an utter failure. My boyfriend’s daughter didn’t suffer this trouble, but others do. For them, success in the face of the storm feels as improbable as flying.
My boyfriend’s daughter did not choose to study veterinary medicine, and in fact, she did not seem to want to study at all. The relationship between father and daughter soured, and he no longer told her she could be anything she wanted; he said if she wanted to mop floors for a living, that was her business.
I could hear my neighbor still busy at his house—the old family homestead—putting things in order before going home to his own apartment. I glanced at the clock. What did it tell me? My neighbor’s wife would be arriving home. Martín would be having his super. My phone would soon chime to remind me to go to bed. Stare at the clock all I want, and the hands do not seem to move. It’s not too late, the hands say. There’s still time. Time doesn’t exist: it’s all in my head.
