Big Al has discovered perspective.
So, we’re driving to playgroup. Al, my four-year old nephew, likes playgroup. His networking abilities are sublime and he has a supportive network of colleagues. Their favourite things are playdough and outside.
Next to Big Al’s playgroup, a one-story community centre surrounded by lovely trees and parkland, is the only high-rise block of flats in town.
Built in the late ‘fifties, our town is proud of this solitary tower block.
It was dubbed the Threepenny Bit because its 17 floors are hexagonal. The quaint shire folks have even got it listed with Grade II listed building status. Now it can’t be altered without official consent, and when it is, it must be changed in sympathy with the ethos of the great concrete hexagonal prysmic block.
It is an important, if solitary, tower block.
It must be very lonely, surrounded by squat little hobbit houses, an ent like Tolkein’s with its head in the sky.
Of course, for all the children it is an icon. Every morning as we drive to playgroup Al bawls happily, “Auntie Kate, can you see the tower yet? Can you?”
We play hide and seek with the block as we drive closer and it dodges behind buildings and plays peep-bo behinds trees.
On this occasion, however, Al had a variant prepared.
“Auntie Kate!” he exclaimed, in the manner of Archimedes in a bath, “…the tower’s really small!”
I squinted. It looked the same size as usual to me as we hurtled up the road to the playgroup, jousting with mini roundabouts and speed bumps.
I thought hastily. “Yes!” I agreed warmly.”It’s little, Al, because it’s far away. As we get closer it’s going to get bigger….look…”
All the way we noted the relative size of the thrupenny bit as we drove in its direction. Big…..bigger…..biggest.
We got out. The three-foot surveyor stepped out of the car and craned his small neck up at the 17th storey. “Wow,” he noted philosophically.
The day wore on: playgroup, lunch and short rest (for Auntie Kate’s benefit, not Al’s).
I had been trying to accomplish a few simple cybertasks for twenty minutes as Al watched a few snatches of television. But I had not bargained on my small nephew’s inclination to make every television programme a sport in which all adjacent adults should actively participate.
My opinion was rigorously canvassed over every twist and turn of a plot designed for the pint-size. When my eyes appeared otherwise engaged with a screen, he resolved the situation by inserting his head, complete with grin, in my line of sight.
I sighed. I shut the computer.
“Come one Al,” I said. “Let’s go and have a run in the forest.”
We hitched the dogs up and headed for the hills. Actually, for the part of the forest which is a considerable tourist attraction.
At the posh public entrance, right next to the car park, there is one of those acrobat-high-wire roof-of-the-forest affairs where people can don hard hats and safety lines and teeter around on apparatus strung between the tall trees, gazing down at the heads of tourists.
Its emblem is an ape: and at the gate to the forest, before the long path cuts deep into the trees in a Roman-road style scythe, is a great wooden ape sculpture.
Naturally, Al loves this. We stood and communed silently with it on entry. “Why’s it cross?” enquired Al, noting its furrowed brow.
“He’s not cross,” I said, “look at his smile.” I traced it with my finger. Al was not convinced. Brows trump smile, it seems, every time.
When we had worshipped for a suitable length of time we started off down the path. We had not gone twenty yards before he turned round and stared back down the path, eyeing the ape with undisguised delight.
“Look, Auntie Kate!” he shouted. “It’s smaller!”
Well, blow me down. So it was.
“Yes, Al!” I grinned. “Because it’s further away!”
Ten yards further. Turn around. “It’s smaller, Auntie Kate……”
And so on, turning round again and again all the way up the poker-straight path into the forest, observing the ape’s frowning form dwindle to a dot at the centre of a pretty scene.
There is a charm when we realise where our preconceptions come from.
Once upon a time, each of us was getting to grips with how perspective works. Heck, it took the Renaissance world to work it out for mankind.
But we move on and forget the great cornerstone which is sitting there silently underpinning our understanding of how the world works.
Nice to have Al give me a lesson in perspective.
Kate Shrewsday 
May Big Al never outgrow his utter delight in the world around him. Kids like him teach me things I forgot I knew. I will enjoy playing with my perspective today in honor of Big Al, though I don’t know what I will discover that can compete with a big wooden ape.
Lovely post as always, Kate.
That would take some beating, Andra: although something tells me you will find something of a similar calibre….
You have the most interestingly varied neighbourhood!
That is a part of the perception training, I suppose, that enables us to recognise pictures as a representation of reality. I have read that to a person never exposed to a photograph before, it is meaningless. Weird.
Yup, Col, our neighbourhood is singular. There is no other way to describe it 😀 Your comment is fascinating and sends me cannoning off to find out more about this: how strange that the language of perspective, which we have programmed into us from so young, should be so essential in looking at a photograph!
It makes sense to me when I recall how one has to ‘train’ the eye to recognise one of those 3D images.
Big Al sounds adorable! What a lovely tale of wonder! It never ceases to amaze me that even though children have much to learn they also have much to teach, too. 🙂
You put it so well, Heather…I learnt so much from just watching Al go through this thought process.
The President and congress of the USA need to learn some perspective too. John Harris lost his job as the factory closed down and consequently the family health insurance. His daughter is very sick, they will be evicted on the 30th and he can’t make the car payment. There remains three day’s food in the pantry. They(US Congress) are up there talking about “…the American people this and the American people that…” They have no perspective at all. There are millions of Americans in the same boat as John Harris. He’s at his wits end. I am so thankful to have my social security and pension and split expenses with my 88 year old parents that live with me.
I think something happens to people when they get into high positions of power and your are absolutely right, Carl: thy lose their perspective, and forget the plight of everyman. Here too, we watch people who have plenty pronouncing and making changes on those who have very little indeed. It is quite sickening.
It is just fascinating to watch children suddenly ‘get’ something. I remember quite clearly when O Bunn discovered reflections, she looked at the glass in a shop window and said ‘Mommy dat me!”
It’s funny, Cindy – I remember learning about that stage in my child development classes at college: recognition of reflection goes hand in hand with realising that one is an entity on one’s own, utterly separate from one’s mother. A key moment. As you say: fascinating.
Yes, perspective and perspective, right? We are so lucky, we get to experience the world, and then we get to experience it again and again… if we allow the very young to teach us.
It’s a special kind of privilege, Ruth 🙂
My 9-year-old grandson recently overheard his parents discussing the shrinking value of the dollar. Taking it very much to heart, he urged his dad to take him to the store tonight because his money would buy more candy tonight than tomorrow! It’s amazing what those developing brains are absorbing and processing when we don’t even realize it.
Isn’t it? A wonderful story, PiedType 😀
It’s always so fresh to see the world through a child’s eyes. Wonderful post!
Thanks Selena, lovely to see you!
I remember how wonderful it was to see the world through a child’s eyes… nothing quite like it!
There is not, Denise 🙂 Al’s perspective is so different from ours….
Big Al (the journalist-in-training, as I recall from an earlier post) has made me think about perspective as part of the writing process. As one approaches, say, one’s past–or any topic with the magnetic pull of that tower–in an honest effort to see it clearly, it looms emotionally large. That’s the challenge of writing truly and well: one must be willing to experience the reality, up close and personal. It can be risky business, which is why I think a lot of writers prefer the distance of the abstract intellectual lens.
Thank you, Big Al, for demonstrating that the willingness to engage in such risky business is necessary also to the rewards of joy and discovery; and thank you, Auntie Kate, for shutting the computer, temporarily, in favor of encouraging such a stalwart little soul. Not every grown-up, let me tell you, makes the same choice when exuberant innocence sticks its head in the line of sight. I think your neighborhood is singular in more ways than one.
What a wonderful application of perspective, Barbara. I shall be aware, now, when I am doing what you describe. It’s not always easy, is it? Nice to hear from you, as always…
Fortunate for Al, he is working through keen observations. I must have missed that step. I’m a natural Escher! 😀
My mind flies straight to his “Relativity”, Amy 😀 Lucky you!
There is nothing like sharing in an A-Ha moment with a child . . . or an adult, for that matter.
Thanks, Kate, for sharing some perspective.
You’re welcome, Nancy 🙂
Isn’t it wonderful to be invited into the mind of a 4 year old. They teach us to view life in a new way. Your ape thingy sounds a little like the one at Alice Holt. I’m sure it’s the same ‘company’, We saw a number of adults working their way along it last time we visited with out 4 year old. He studied for a while and then said ‘Why are they doing it the hard way?’
😀 Fantastic: out of the mouths of babes! Why indeed….
Wonderful post, Kate. And I love that photograph! It encapsulates everything you have told us about this delightful little chap. 😀
He’s a hurricane, BB 🙂
interesting to watch a child growing up. perspective is quite a grown up concept so well done Al
He a bright chappie, Sidey….
Wonderful post! Paula shared this with me.
Paula’s Hubs
😀 Hi Ashley, lovely of you to come over and take a look! Al always makes for excellent material.
I want so much to lay my eyes on Big Al! To say nothing about Felix, Maddie, and you & your Hubs! What a delightful gift Al gave to you. Something about being around little ones on the brink of discovery: they give you back the world, made shiny and new, all over again. Your cup runs over with blessings! Write that down so you’ll remember it the next time Al sends you ’round the bend! 😆
I shall tatoo it on my forehead, Paula 😀 Remembering Al is a treasure in the middle of one of his escapades can be a challenge…
A 4-year old’s perspective has not yet been tainted by the warped perspectives of the world, and there is joy in that.
It is lovely, Karen. It rebalances you.
I didn’t consciously discover perspective at all. It wasn’t until my art teacher pointed it out to me that I discovered that it existed at all. Or perhaps not: I was aware, even as a small boy, that my dad appeared to drive much faster down narrow country lanes than he did on the open road. Or maybe not: Perhaps Dad just liked driving fast down coutnry lanes coz his clapped out Morris Oxford was just too damned slow on the open road.
All these things are possible, Tooty: and somewhere in the middle you learned about perspective anyway..
My favourite thing in this post: Their favourite things are playdough and outside.
Tells you everything you need to know. Wonderful 🙂
Ask any one of them and they will readily supply the information, Tilly 😀
“The three-foot surveyor stepped out of the car and craned his small neck up at the 17th storey. “Wow,” he noted philosophically. ” Your words, dear Kate, always bring a smile to my lips. I love Big Al’s perspective and I love his always questioning, though, I suspect, Auntie Kate is pure tired by day’s end.
I am, Penny, and I feel sure your experience of little Kezzie informs this observation 😀 I loved your post today but felt the stretch as you had to leave Kezzie and her lovely family.
Piaget would have been proud of you both!