Life With Lev

February 24, 2011

rage

During his thirteenth year, I would catch Lev in the bathroom, glaring at himself in the mirror, learning to perfect his glare. He really wanted to be all powerful. At age fourteen he spent time learning to raise his eyebrows independently, and got quite good.

I found this writing about his rage, and I miss his rage, his silliness, his love and caring. I miss it all, the boy of extremes.

It is titled Rage, September 2006, from his sixth grade writing journal.

Rage
I believe that rage is the most powerful inner source in the world. By inner source I mean strength that you draw from the soul, not the body. I have worked over the years to learn to harness my rage until I burst it loose.
I believe that someone with enough rage can fight even with an arrow in the gut or a sword in the stomach. I believe that a beginner is only a rage apprentice while someone who has studied for years, like me, is a rage lord.
I can scare my fourteen year old brother with the rage of a rage lord.
I believe everything I just wrote.

(I wonder what his teacher thought of this entry. The next page of the journal has a grade, and he got full points for his amount, use, thought, and presentation, 100%. Later in the year she did give him an award for having a unique sense of humor, which I think was after he had gotten in big trouble for comparing her to a whale, without bad intentions.)

Reading through his writings is good, and feels right, but it is quite difficult. He is sorely missed. I wonder where his creative energies, rage and compassion would have led him in life. I am sorry for him and the world for our loss. He has left a hole, a grief hole, not a rage hole in me. Maybe I can harness the energy and become a grief lord. :-)

Rebecca

random things

Lev's writing: He would be happy to have this one posted, on chores and kids freedom

I think that kids should have some time to just cool down and not rush around everywhere like little scampering ants. Kids should be free and not rushed. We should be slow and calm with fun and imaginations instead of being everywhere at once. Playing, not working, running around with shouts of glee, not being forced into drudgery.

Lev's stories from sixth grade: Justificator

Justificator
SS-49 UK only Prototype

The Justificator is a
little gravitational
stabilizer that
is like a little
gyro except
using polar
magnetism and
it can
make you
impossible to
trip if it is
in your shoes
or in your
dog's collar
to make it
land right
side up or
in other
words on
your feet
and it can
make you
do a backflip.

Lev's stories from sixth grade: The Candy Bar Trilogy

Sorting through Lev's writings, there were some really interesting, funny snippets of Lev from his sixth grade journal.
I will type some of them into the blog, to save them and to share his humor. They are written sloppily, in pencil, so they don't scan well. I'll try to get the originals up, but I think typing them would be best.
There is so little I can do with my emotions, so maybe this will help.

Here is one of his stories, I'm not sure if it's true, but the details are amusing. I definitely think there is some stretching of the truth to make a good tale since the facts of this first one don't add up. We were living in Costa Rica, without much access to Snickers, so it must be a tall tale, but here goes.

2 Pounds

Once when I was 7, I hid 2 pounds of snickers in my lego trunk and, by the way, that is 208 snickers which I hid. But this was a lego trunk and it was huge so I shoved them in the legos. Then 23 days after Halloween I ate them one by one, plunging my hands into the trunk, shoving through the legos, and pulling them out until I got a headache from too much chocolate. So, I ate until I choked for 4 seconds, but by then I was done. I think I choked on caramel but fell asleep from too much sugar at 3:45pm and slept for three hours. Then I felt like Barfing. THE END

Another similar story, so he must have hidden some chocolates in the lego trunk. We still have the lego trunk, and I did find a couple wrappers in it last year.

Me and My Friend

Once when I was 8 me and my friend were playing with legos when I got out 62 Snickers and 28 milky ways. Now there is something you should know about Milky Ways - they are like heaven but on earth. Just eating one makes my stomach feel fluttery and then I feel all light-headed like I could fly or levitate. So, we ate Snickers but I mainly pigged out voraciously on the Milky Ways and if someone had given me a Milky Way I would jump off a cliff for it. So, we ate until there were wrappers floating in a sea of trash but some wrappers may still be found in the Lego box.
THE END

Last story in the candy bar trilogy:

Blood and Guts Bar

Once upon a time there was a young fairy named Will who invited a human into fairy land and then the human started a candy bar factory.

(That's it. I don't know if it's the end, or he ran out of time or steam.)

Rebecca

February 16, 2011

sloth

We visited a sloth sanctuary on the Atlantic coast in Costa Rica.

Lev planted this one, too, at the Cloud Forest School/CEC

we went bicycle camping on Lopez island

karate

Lev was into karate for a few years.

bananas

In banana plants, with a cat that ran away in a few months

special place

This is his special place, where he reforested, wrote poetry, and took care of the land. Thanks to Bryan, his teacher, who started the project.

trees

Lev planted this tree when he was in third grade at the CEC/CFS.

visiting the house where Lev was born

snow family photo

another family photo

visiting New York every summer

9th birthday

Lev celebrated with Eduardo and Trevor. We were one of the few houses with a bathtub and they played in it for hours.
Note on the photo that Lev has a scar across his face.
On the hill up to school, he took a short cut and was diving under a barbed wire fence. He didn't realize that there was a lower strand of barbed wire, and he dove right into it, luckily missing his eye, but we hurried the rest of the way with blood dripping down his face. He was very proud of the scar.