Six decades after the age when most people do, I have become obsessed with Lego. My gateway drug was a set that resembled an ice cream truck. Like many parents, I was trying something new as a way to connect with one of my children. Unlike many parents, in my case the child in question was an adult, and I was building a set he had designed.
My three children were fascinated with building blocks as toddlers, and my husband played with them, teaching them the concept of a “stable foundation.” But I was the one alone with the kids day after day, enduring endless, harrowing afternoons on the playroom floor. I remember when the kids were about 3, 7, and 8, feeling like it would be forever before my husband would come home, and thinking, “Lego againDidn't we just do this? yesterdayThose hours seemed to last forever, but one day, unbelievably, I blinked and suddenly they were driving, getting fake IDs and heading to college.
Of the three, my middle son, Aaron, was the enigmatic one, the one I couldn’t always figure out. We moved from Ohio to the Bay Area when Aaron was in fifth grade, and the transition was almost too much for him. He’d always been averse to change; when I rearranged the furniture in our family room in Ohio when Aaron was about 6, he was inconsolable, crying for days like King Lear in the storm: “Why is everything so wrong?” different?”
The move to California caused him terrible distress; like a sad old turtle retreating into its shell, Aaron lived 24/7 with the hoods pulled up to the rafters for nearly a year. I look back at family photos from that time and my heart breaks at the sight of his face, often filled with dismay rather than joy.
So how did Aaron find his balance?
First, he discovered musical theater. As a teenager, he appeared in a dozen musicals at the local community theater. Whenever we could, he and I would watch Broadway shows together: “Hamilton,” “Anything Goes,” “Dear Evan Hansen.” Watching Aaron discover joy through musical theater was a pleasure (and a relief).
Secondly, Aaron kept building with Lego even when other kids his age couldn’t anymore. During high school, he found a group of equally enamored enthusiasts online who shared their original designs with each other. By the time he was in high school, he had discovered the “adult Lego fan” community, and that was it for him – he had found his people.
During college, he began taking on commissions (“Can you design and build a life-size Nike Jordan shoe out of Lego?” “Yeah, sure!” “How about creating a Balrog, the demonic monster from ‘Lord of the Rings’?” “Yeah, sure!”). After graduating, he continued on to larger, higher-paying commissions, building a blossoming career.
Aaron’s dream, pretty much ever since he developed his fine motor skills, was to work for Lego as a designer. But that would also mean moving to Denmark. After college, he’d started teaching himself Danish (the boy had his eye on the prize) and a few years after graduating, Lego hired him.
He and his wife now live in Billund, Denmark, 5,368 miles from our home in the Bay Area.
Last fall, by pure chance, Aaron and I spent a special few days together in New York, going to Broadway shows and to a Greenwich Village bar to sing show tunes together in a drunken atmosphere. But it was when we went to the Lego store in Rockefeller Center that I felt I glimpsed the core of his soul. We saw the sets he had designed, and he told me about other designers when we went to see their sets. This was his place, these were his people, this was his life—or at least, it was his base.
Looking back, I realize that the concept of the “stable foundation” my husband taught him all those years ago has become a metaphor for Aaron’s life: this world of interlocking pieces is where he feels most calm, happy, and competent. He needs things to make sense the way Legos do.
As monotonous as the after-school hours seemed to me all those years ago, I would love to go back in time to when we all lived under one roof and I, the boys' mother, was the great love of their lives, sitting on the floor of that playroom. Not forever, but just for a little while, armed with the knowledge I have now.
Time has passed too quickly. In the meantime, I have a new and deeper connection with Aaron, my sometimes elusive son. When I pull out a bag of plastic bricks and start sorting them, the simple sound makes me remember and feel the essence of my son again, no matter how far away he is.
Abby Margolis Newman is a freelance writer in the Bay Area. @newmaniacs
