27 Jun Entirely Himself
There’s a teenage boy leaning against a cork tree. It looks almost like a normal tree, except the outermost layer of bark has been removed from a section of the base, revealing a smooth underlayer. A spray-painted year on the tree indicates when the cork can next be harvested.
The boy is holding something rectangular and red, which looks like a book.
A group of boys about his age are playing basketball in the fenced-in court next to him. They are yelling at the boy leaning against the cork tree. I do not know what they are saying because they are speaking Portuguese, but I can guess based on their tone:
“Get over here.”
“Why aren’t you playing with us?”
“Are you afraid you’re not good enough?”
“Don’t be such a loser.”
They throw the ball in the boy’s direction, and it bangs loudly against the fence. The boy looks up, startled. They taunt him some more, laughing, pointing and high-fiving each other.
The boy has opened his book and is reading. I squint to see if I can tell what book it is.
Perhaps it is because the boy is leaning against a cork tree, or maybe it is because the book is a particularly bright shade of red, but I wonder if what he is reading is the beloved picture-book “Ferdinand” by Munro Leaf.
It’s a story about a gentle bull named Ferdinand and frustrated matadors who want him to fight. But Ferdinand doesn’t want to fight. He is content to sit quietly under the cork tree and smell the beautiful flowers all around.
Ferdinand turns away from his peers head-butting practice. He doesn’t react to the red capes the matadors wave in his face and the spears the picadors pierce into his shoulders. He keeps being himself even when those around him, frustrated with the inability to provoke him, are throwing tantrums. Eventually, they let him be, and he is happy.
It’s a story about the quiet power of nonconformity.
It’s a story about not being what you’re born into, but rather being what you’re born to be.
It is not the red “Ferdinand” book the boy is holding, though. It’s something else. Whatever it is, he is enjoying it. I can tell from the gentle smile on his face as he eagerly flips the pages. He avoids his disappointed hecklers, who eventually give up and leave him alone to enjoy his solitude.
Maybe the story of Ferdinand is this boy’s story, in some way—a story about the attainability of alternative endings, a story about a boy who grows up to remain entirely himself.