Twenty minutes late, she saunters in, aggravated--poor lass--chronically, probably dangerously, rushing around town in all the bloody traffic. Does it ever stop? When's the last time she had a day off? Honestly, she can't remember.
It's her kids and their nonstop activities. They've got baseball, soccer and Kumon math drills, lest they forget their multiplication tables. Remy's got his oboe, and little Chelsea's playing Clytemnestra in the school play, did she mention that? Most children her age can't even say "Clytemnestra," yet Chelsea can say it three times fast: Clytemnestra, Clytemnestra, Clytemnestra.
And then there's Tristan, the most draining of them all.
Tristan does gymnastics--private instruction, because at 13, he's been kicked off every sports team he's ever joined. He can't get along with other children. He never sits down. He interrupts conversations continually. He's a hardcore attention junkie. Last year, he got bored at school and unplugged every machine on his middle school campus.
All this and more, because, Fiona's come to understand, Tristan is an indigo child.
For those of you living in caves, or for those like me who wish they were when they hear shit like this, an indigo child is the latest brand of New Age kid destined to save the world. This is the brainchild of the husband-and-wife team of Lee Carroll and Jan Tober. I have no idea who they were before their million-dollar books and accessories put them on the map, nor is it quite clear how these kids are going to, in fact, save the world. But they are destined, according to the authors "to usher in an era of environmental renewal and political rebirth."
The designation "indigo" refers to the color of the kids' aura. Regular people can't see it, but psychics and spiritually enlightened people can.
The only aura I've ever seen around little Tristan is a noisy electric nuttiness, exactly like his parents. If either one of them had to sit in a room by themselves for five minutes, they'd go stark raving mad. Mr. and Mrs. Fiona aren't just overachievers; they're so compulsive that in a better world, they would be arrested.
I got home and headed straight to the Internet, the font of all knowledge. It seems Carroll learned about indigo children channeling a space-being called Kryon. Kryon is to Lee Carroll as the angel Moroni is to Joseph Smith. While Smith channeled Moroni through a load of crystals in his hat, writing down the revelations on golden plates, Carroll channeled Kryon and wrote down what he heard in a book called The Indigo Children: The New Kids Have Arrived. I'd wager Carroll and Tober are doing a hell of a lot better than Joseph Smith did on his best day, with 250,000 books sold and a film called The Indigo Evolution.
There are 10 attributes of an indigo child. I won't enumerate them here--they're too tedious--but the gist is these kids think they are reincarnated royalty. It's constitutionally impossible for them to deal with authority, wait in line or conform to any "system," for example, the rules of your average classroom. They're antisocial except with their own kind, and they think no one understands them. They are uncannily good at reading their parents to the point of appearing telepathic. In fact, telepathy is a normal developmental milestone for an indigo.
I was gob-smacked upon learning this. I'd always considered Tristan a poster child for ADHD. Little did I know he was actually an enlightened space-being.
I say this to Fiona, though with more diplomacy. "Have you ever tried putting him on Ritalin?"
"That's what the bloody doctors always say," she says, knitting her brow and sighing. "But I didn't expect it from you."
"I'm just thinking of Remy and Clytemnestra. Is it really fair, you spending all your energy corralling one kid?"
"Remy and Chelsea. My daughter's name is Chelsea."
"Is she an indigo?"
"I don't think so. She's younger than Tristan. She may be a 'crystal.'"
I don't even bother to fucking ask.
