An Eight-Year-Old’s Secrets

Here’s how you get an eight-year-old girl to reveal all of her secrets. You just shut up and wait for her to volunteer things.

This is something I learned shortly after a touching and picturesque wedding ceremony in Ryetown, New York. Afterwards, I found myself riding in a Prius into Manhattan, arriving in the afternoon. The day was spent roaming around Manhattan with my friends George and Stefanie - visiting the Uniqlo flagship, eating red velvet cupcakes, and then, unpredictably, playing at a local playground.

At the playground, Stefanie’s friend Ting showed up with her eight-year-old sister Nancy in tow. Nancy is a dancer/gymnast, and showed off some incredibly impressive high kicks and splits. And then I saw her perform a physical movement I found very familiar - a pose I’ve learned as Upward Facing Bow - a backwards-bending arch formed with the hands and feet as the foundation.

“Hey!” I said. “I can do that!”

So I threw my bag down to the ground, laid on my back, bent my knees, and pushed up into the pose.

“You’re cheating!” said Nancy.

“What?” I thought it was a pretty decent UFB, if a bit sloppy.

“Look, she said. And she stood upright, and fell backwards into the pose, which is of course something I cannot do unless I want to severely injure myself.

“Oh,” I said. “Okay. IT’S ON.”

And that’s how I found myself playing follow the leader with an eight-year-old, something I hadn’t done in decades. I did camel pose for her, as well as swung through the monkey bars without letting my feet touch the ground. Somehow, these feats earned her grudging respect.

Which allowed me to sit down with Nancy for a chat, which was something I felt would be extremely useful for Pillow Crisis research.

“Do you like Pokemon?”

“No,” she said. “I like DIGIMON.” As if the distinction were the most important one in the universe.

Later, she quizzed my Chinese.

“Do you know da?

“No.”

She smacked her forehead. “Do you know siaw?”

“Nope.”

“Da means big, siaw means small. I’m small, you’re big.”

“I know the word for automobile.” I proceeded to butcher the word. She looked at me.

“You’re Japanese.”

“No! I’m Chinese! It’s just been a long time, dude.”

From there I learned the most intimate details of the internecine politics of best friendship in elementary school, which is mainly a task of balancing multiple demands for playtime from various suitors.

What was interesting about Nancy’s monologue on the perils of friendship was how utterly serious it was. Not once did I think that her problems were diminutive or cute - I felt very much in the presence of someone who was struggling to make sense of the various ends of her life.

Much like myself.