 |
Young Yone
|
We have a godson, Talia and I. We knew him well as a peutertje, but then both we and he left Amsterdam, and our paths have not crossed much since. I hardly maintain long-established friendships with the many people I love who live far away, and have done very little to build one with this little boy who now lives in Tenerife. So this summer we decided to bring him closer.
 |
Towering over actual little boy and not so big wife
|
Yone has grown up...not a surprise and yet surprising. He is 17, done with his secondary education, and happy to come on vacation with us. He brings with him to California a great sense of style, some very well articulated political theory, and altogether too many opinions about music, all of it new to us. Like many teens, he is also carrying some emotional baggage from pandemic isolation and too much time on YouTube. What he doesn't have is any saffron (Tenerife is, I was told by his mother who forgot to pack it, famous for a particularly pungent cultivar of this rare spice), but he makes up for this by doing most of the work when we invite friends over to meet him and to eat his paella.
 |
Wood-fired, delicious!
|
We eat this and a lot more good food, have many fun adventures together, and do no permanent damage to him at all in the too-brief time he is in town.
While enjoying his company, I try to figure out what this now young man might need from a godparent. By coincidence, on the very first day of his visit, while driving out to Stinson Beach to enjoy the waves and have a "dingleberry" fight...
 |
Boys will be boys
|
...we listen to a story by David Sedaris (
S07E02) in which he recounts his experiences as a godfather. Sedaris's view is that the godfather's job is to give the godchild fancy gifts and the godchild's job is to be wowed by them. This despite the fact that in his experience the godchild is inevitably underwhelmed, leaving both parties dissatisfied. Still, my point of view when Yone arrived was similar: if asked, I'd have said we follow the Disney model, wherein the godparent exists as a distant entity who shows up at random/magically determined intervals to grant wishes and then disappears again.
 |
To date, my wish-granting has focused on records
|
Yone, however, responds to Sedaris's story with horror: in his view, relationships where one person does all the giving and the other all the taking are by definition dysfunctional and unlikely to last. His dissertation on the topic is passionate and well reasoned, but upon reflection I realize it doesn't match my experiences. I have had many wonderful relationships that were one-sided. In my long and varied career in particular I have benefited again and again from mentorship. I count these people friends, and stand prepared to do them favors in return, but really there's little they need from me. I can only ever repay them by mentoring in turn.
 |
Yone paying it forward
|
By the time Yone leaves--indeed, in the car ride to the airport--I've formulated my point of view and found a way to communicate it. I, too, have had a godsomething, I tell him, in my case a godbrother, one of my older siblings, who (among much else, though I gloss that over) has provided me a standing line of credit and good advice through the years. Yone surely does not lack for good advice, but it's easier to hear it from someone who is trusted but at a distance. And one can always use credit. So we agree on this: I'm here for that, and, of course, for another free plane ticket and lots more good food the next time he cares to visit.
 |
Hasta la vista, Yone!
|
