Brain Power

Maybe I'm easily amused, but Freestone cracks me up.  He got in the car with this mess of stuff and said, "My friend gave me this!  He said they used to make those VHS tapes with it.  This one is a yoga video.  This must be what they mean at the airport when they sat the x-ray machine 'may damage film.'  This must be FILM!"  Part of what makes Freestone so entertaining is that his thought process happens out loud.

These were my three dates for Ballet West's dress rehearsal of Romeo and Juliet last night.  While Araceli and Ellen laughed and took selfies during intermission, I tuned into Freestone.  I had asked him earlier what he got on his math test and he said he got a hundred percent.  I replied, "Ha ha."  Later when we checked his grades, he really had gotten 100%.  He acted like it was no big deal, whereas if I had ever gotten a perfect score on a math test, it would have been cause for great rejoicing across the land.  I guess.  I'd never really thought through that scenario, because a 100% on a math test is like a unicorn.  You hope they're real, but you've never seen one.

So I asked Freestone why he's so good at math.  His answer opened up a whole new way of looking at math, even if I can't do it.  "I dunno.  It's easy.  You look at it and you're like, 'that makes so much sense.'  If it doesn't make sense, Mom, you just let it make sense."  He studied my face for signs of enlightenment.  I got what he was saying.  I could see how a smart kid with an analytical mind and some amazing math teachers could just let it all sink in until it made sense.  I have to admire Freestone's Zen approach to math, especially since it's all Greek to me.  As I admired this kid, I wished that I had had the math training he's had.  The way he has been taught to bend, challenge and stretch his understanding of numbers is so cool.

On the way home, Freestone sat shotgun.  He said patiently, as he racked up coins on his phone's video game with his quick-moving thumbs, "Ok, Mom, we're going to have a lesson on diffusion versus osmosis."

For the next twenty-odd miles, it was all "spontaneous movement of particles" and "selectively permeable membranes" and "solute concentration gradients."  All I could think was, first, if there's a test on this at school, this lazy kid is going to ace it!  And secondly, "I get it!"  Suddenly, all the blubbering of all my past science teachers started to come into focus.  For the first time tonight, I realized that math and science are actually understandable.  Those disciplines aren't full of uncrackable codes.  And it took a 12-year-old to break down the mental blocks I had subconsciously put up against those "hard" subjects.

In turn, I had explained to Freestone walking out of the ballet how it was easy to tell that the music was by Prokofiev and not Tchaikovsky that night.  A light bulb didn't exactly go off for him.  I can't imagine why.  Prokofiev has a lot more dissonance, and it's thicker, but less sweeping; darker because of the diminished chords, but not as blatantly emotional.  And also there was a saxophone.  Dead giveaway.

Just let it make sense, Freestone.