When Edwin was a toddler, he was fascinated by boats. Titanic, Lusitania, Britannica, Queen Mary, Normandie – all of these were household names. When he was four, he dressed as Jack from the movie Titanic for Halloween; he wore a little suit and slicked his hair back (he preferred the gussied up version of Jack). When people knelt down to ask him, “And who are you, little boy?” he looked them earnestly in the eye and responded, “I’m Jack from Titanic.” They were a little perplexed.
By the time he was five, he could give you the complete stories of all the great ocean liners that met terrible fates. For his birthdays and Christmases, his grandparents, aunts, and uncles all knew to get him something boat-related: 3-D books, boat encyclopedias, model boats, boats that floated, boat movies, boat t-shirts. He liked to show me dramatizations of catastrophic events he found online, which I always found disturbing. I asked him once if these disasters made him sad or distressed, and he looked at me, a little confused, and would finally say something like, “Well, yeah, it’s sad, but look at how big this wave was…” or “Look at the gash the iceberg tore along the side…” He’d build boats out of blocks, Legos, and wood scraps from his dad’s workshop.
Eventually, his passion for boats died down and he focused his attention on architecture, and before long began educating us on the greatest designs around the world. He constructed his ideal worlds by drawing maps and including his favorite architecture. He’d have London’s Gherkin placed on one side of his capital city and Dubai’s Burj Khalifa right across the river. I kind of missed his passion for boats and folded up his faded Titanic t-shirt to save for him.
The other day, he informed me he had placed an order with Michael’s for curbside pick-up. It consisted of balsa wood and sharpies. Once we got the materials home and wiped them free of potential contaminants, he disappeared into the shop in the basement. In a couple hours, he emerged with a beautiful ocean liner that he placed on little stands so he could properly display it. The next day, he used sharpies to draw in the windows, lifeboats, pools, and other features. He walked around it, tilting his head and carefully examining his work, exactly the way he did when he was five. It’s nice to see that the passion still burns.
My Corner of the Village 