Before my age hit double digits, I remember sitting on the porch with my silent Grandpa. He was jockey of a wooden swing that was suspended from the ceiling by chains, and the images formed from the clouds of pipe smoke he exhaled, plus the rhythmic eeking of the swing's "cheep-cheep," formed for me a clear and steady conformation about what true peace was really like. I studied his demeanor and his look: He was frozen in time with his Czechoslovakian ways, pants that were short and strained at the inseam from trying to restrain a belly that had seen too many beers and "shots." He wore wildly patterned shirts and black shoes that molded his feet like a second skin.
He didn't speak English, not a word. But I knew my grandfather loved me because he laughed when my cousin and I said, "Eh, Ga-ram-pa" in our childish ways of imitating an exotic foreign tongue. Still he smiled and extended tender hands and gave us rough-bearded kisses that smelled like burnt hemp mixed with almonds. And soon after that period of time faded from my memories like childhood dreams, I lost my instinct for reading other people. I became stupid with naiveté, unable to decipher who was telling the truth or simply pulling my leg. Later on in my teens, I was hit on by young men who only wanted one thing. And still later, I was continually burned by people I'd thought were my friends. In fact, that's one of the reasons I married Michael: first, because I liked his version of me better than I liked my own, and two, because I knew he would provide balance for me, his yang to my yin. His skepticism to my naïveté. That's why when Jordan started asking me about family traits for a school project and Ziggy started to get choosy about people at the same time, I blanked.
Apparently Jordan had first asked his dad this question, and Michael had said something very dad-like such as, "I think you got Mom's looks and my bad habits." He was playing with Ziggy at the time; and a moment earlier when he'd opened the cage, she had tried to spring past him and I heard him say as he caught Ziggy's leg in mid-air, "You get a piece of the monkey, you get the whole monkey." And then Mike held the monkey up by the elbows and kissed her forehead. She pretended to struggle and got more and more kisses. Ziggy had grown so much that she had a hard time getting her yardstick-long body into his sweatshirt and threading her Buddha belly through the knit cuff on the neck of his shirt. But she burrowed in just the same and her hands came out and hugged his neck.
Jordan persisted. "What do you mean, 'bad habits'?"
"Well, not bad habits necessarily. More like natural abilities. Or talent. Like-don't be upset by this Sport, but you can't draw. Me either. Courtney can draw and Mom is an artist. But us-nada."
"I can draw," Jordan protested.
"Okay, singing," said his father. "I can't carry a tune and you're no Elvis either. Tone deaf."
"I can too sing," replied Jordan.
"Listen," Mike said, "I'll sing my ditty. Then you." He was playing with the monkey girl, tickling her sides as she came out the bottom of his shirt. "Do your ears hang low, can you swing 'em to and fro, . . . Can you tie 'em in a knot, can you tie 'em in a bow?" And upon hearing this, the dog began to squirm and disapprove with a series of yowling noises. "See?" he said. "Case closed."
As innocuous as that story might sound, it says a lot about nature and nurture. I asked myself then-and a hundred times since-if parents always do right by their children's abilities, and how they can know if a child has missed the window of opportunity with music or art or sports.
Then, too, I wondered, what was Ziggy missing by not being with her own primate family? This question, or versions of it, plagued me for years before I finally came to terms with it. First of all, Ziggy was not conceived in South America; she was born in Florida. And she was one of us now, part of a relatively hairless family troop in comparison to her natural kin. Her status within the family was well established and her needs were taken care of. She had toys of higher learning, received plenty of stimulus, and was encouraged to have a relationship with her siblings.
She let us know she was happy by playing rolling ball games with her body and smiling and acting up. Did she miss the rainforest and trees and a life filled with itinerant moving? Because she didn't know the difference, I doubted whether it mattered. As much as I have romantic fantasies and dreams of how the world should be, it bears little relationship to the reality of the state of the world's environment and where it's leading us.
As far as Ziggy's life, I know it's great. And in respect to Ziggy's life after me, she will do great again. I believe that monkeys have an inherent propensity to adapt. Simply put, monkeys want to please the boss. The larger, more complicated world issues aside, I can tell you that this miniature marriage survives; no, it thrives.
With regard to Jordan and his questions about "traits," Michael and I were careful to lay a string of self-confidence twined together with tales of our own family's legacy; it trails through the labyrinth of life so Jordan can retrace his steps out once he has slain the Minotaur, also known as biography. It worked for Theseus.
