{"id":4681,"date":"2021-07-16T13:32:20","date_gmt":"2021-07-16T20:32:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/?p=4681"},"modified":"2021-07-17T07:32:52","modified_gmt":"2021-07-17T14:32:52","slug":"being-here-on-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/archives\/4681","title":{"rendered":"Being Here On Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Henri is twelve, exactly twelve, as twelve as he can be. Five months ago he was four-foot-nine and now he\u2019s five-foot-three. A beautiful muscular lad with curly brown hair, his mother German, his father French, Henri plays accordion, piano, and guitar, all of them quite well, and he sings beautifully, too. He loves to draw and write and work in the garden, his reading of late Geology and Irish short stories. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

An outstanding soccer player and\nbrilliant with a Frisbee, Henri thinks it would be wonderful to be a wildlife\nbiologist like their neighbor and teacher Michael, though he often feels destined\nto be a playwright actor musician. Still other times there\u2019s nothing he would\nrather be than a farmer who gives accordion lessons and has the occasional show\nof drawings at the Fletcher Gallery in town. And then there is his keen\ninterest in cooking and architecture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is standing some fifty feet from\nthe farmhouse at Ziggurat Farm, two miles inland from the remote northern\nCalifornia coastal burg of Mercy. His five fellow homeschoolers await him in\nthe farmhouse along with various parents and teachers and friends enjoying a\nbrief intermission from monologues and scenes and music the homeschoolers (and\nsometimes teachers and parents and friends) perform every third Friday of the\nmonth, this being March 22, the afternoon cool and cloudy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Henri is scheduled to open the\nsecond act with an original accordion tune and a monologue of his own creation,\na speech he work-shopped extensively with his Drama teacher Lisa, his writing\nteachers Nathan and Daisy, and his schoolmates Arturo, Vivienne, Larry, Alma,\nand Irenia, as well as his parents Andrea and Marcel. Thus many of the people\nin the audience have already heard some version of the speech, though no one\nsave Henri has heard exactly the version he is about to recite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The monologue sprang from an\nassignment to create a speech based on something from Shakespeare, and Henri\ndecided to use the famous To be or not to\nbe<\/em> soliloquy from Hamlet<\/em> as his\nspark. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo not die or to not not die,\u201d says\nHenri, reciting the opening of his speech, his use of not not<\/em> a sure laugh getter. \u201cThat is a tangle of knots. If no one\nstays when supper\u2019s over, who will scrub the pots?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s waiting for someone to come out of the farmhouse and tell him intermission is at end, and as he waits he thinks of Joseph Richardson who moved back to England with his wife Constance two years ago, and how Joseph would have loved these third Friday shows and no doubt would have performed at them, too, had he not moved away. Joseph was an inspired reciter of Shakespeare as well as being the children\u2019s art teacher before he passed the baton to Delilah, who also teaches them music and math. Oh how I miss Joseph!<\/em> thinks Henri, who always felt profoundly appreciated by Joseph, and vice-versa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd what of girls becoming women,\nand boys becoming men?\u201d says Henri, continuing his monologue. \u201cWhere went the\nchild I used to be? I\u2019m else than I was then.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which lines make him think of Irenia\nwho is fourteen and the eldest of the Ziggurat Farm homeschoolers, a gorgeous\nfive-foot-nine and the premiere object of Henri\u2019s desire, sexual arousal a new and\ndisconcerting sensation for him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arturo, Henri\u2019s best friend, is\nmadly in love with Irenia, too, and speaks to Henri of his love for her almost\nevery day. Arturo is thirteen and five-foot-eight, and lives in the farmhouse\nwith his younger sister Vivienne and their parents Lisa and Philip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Henri wouldn\u2019t think of competing\nwith Arturo for Irenia\u2019s affection, and is therefore resigned to Arturo and\nIrenia becoming sweethearts, though they are not yet so entwined; and to\ncomplicate matters further, just yesterday Henri felt Irenia gazing at him and\nwhen he met her gaze it was clear as day she loves him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThose tiny seeds my mother planted now\nare sprawling vines,\u201d says Henri, going on with his speech. \u201cThe grapes we trod\na year ago are now my father\u2019s wines.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now Irenia comes out of the\nfarmhouse, her face more beautiful to Henri than anything in the world, her long\nblack hair in a braid, her lovely white blouse given shape by her budding\nbreasts, her long gray skirt revealing hips she had not a year ago, this her\ncostume for a scene with Arturo to follow Henri\u2019s soliloquy; Irenia playing\nKate to Arturo\u2019s Petruchio in the famous \u201cI say it is the moon\u201d scene from The Taming of the Shrew<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Assuming Irenia\u2019s emergence means\nintermission is over, Henri starts for the farmhouse as Irenia runs to meet\nhim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI want to give you a good luck\nkiss,\u201d she says quietly with her subtle Russian accent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And before Henri can reply, she\nkisses him, their lips slightly parted\u2014a blissful communion ended too soon by an\nextra-large Mercedes van rumbling down the drive and parking near the barn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWho could this be?\u201d asks Irenia,\ntaking Henri\u2019s hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI would guess Raul,\u201d says Henri, worried\nArturo might come out and see them holding hands. \u201cOnly he\u2019s already here and\nhis van is not so big.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now a short woman with auburn hair\nand a tall man with longish gray hair get out of the van\u2014the very British\nRichardsons returned from jolly olde England.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJoseph!\u201d shouts Henri, letting go\nof Irenia\u2019s hand and rushing to greet his beloved friends. \u201cConstance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh call me Connie, dear boy,\u201d says\nConstance, hugging Henri. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHenri!\u201d says Joseph, opening his\narms. \u201cLook at you a young man now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Following the joyful hullabaloo of everyone in the farmhouse greeting the Richardsons\u2014their arrival wholly unexpected\u2014Joseph and Constance take seats in the audience and Henri opens Act Two by playing a melancholy barcarole as preface to his soliloquy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Setting his accordion aside, he\ntells his poem\u2014words freighted with new meaning now that he and Irenia have\nkissed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To not die or to not not die, that\nis a tangle of knots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If no one stays when supper\u2019s over,\nwho will scrub the pots?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And what of girls becoming women,\nand boys becoming men?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where went the child I used to be?\nI\u2019m else than I was then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those tiny seeds my mother planted\nnow are sprawling vines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those grapes we trod a year ago are\nnow my father\u2019s wines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Time speeds on despite my wish to\nlinger in my youth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some grand design beyond my wit\npropounds another truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I dread the day I have to choose the\nthing I mostly do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d rather stay a clever boy and\nlinger here with you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The choice, I fear, is hardly mine,\nthe die was cast at birth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only thing I\u2019m certain of is\nbeing here on earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So let us not concern ourselves with\nwhether we should be,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

but rather love each minute as a\nprecious entity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

fin<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lounge Act In Heaven<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Henri is twelve, exactly twelve, as twelve as he can be. Five months ago he was four-foot-nine and now he\u2019s five-foot-three. A beautiful muscular lad with curly brown hair, his mother German, his father French, Henri plays accordion, piano, and guitar, all of them quite well, and he sings beautifully, too. He loves to draw […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[6890,6899,6897,6895,6898,6891,6892,6893,6894,6896,9,33,6788],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4681"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4681"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4687,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4681\/revisions\/4687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}