Don't want to talk about it.

"Hey Peanut!"
"...Hi, Courtney," McKenzie said.
Clearly I'd caught Kenz in the middle of something more important.
"Enjoying your four-day weekend?"
"I don't want to talk about it."
"OK. Did you and Dad make palas* today?"
"No. He's on a diet. And I don't want to talk about it."
"OK."
"How's it at Boston? I mean, Atlanta."
"It's great," I said. "Lots of homework, but my roommate and I have been helping each other get through it piece by piece. We live in a complex with four other people from school, and the six of us make "the six pack." Two boys, Matty and Ben, are cool and sometimes come over, too. You'd like them a lot. How's Sam?"

[For those of you who don't know Sam, he's a boy from school. For those of you who do know Sam, he's a boy from school. It's nonconditional. The debatable part is whether there's a good friendship or a budding romance between McKenzie and Sam. When some people ask, "how's Sam?" it's clearly a sensitive subject because of the romantic implications. She knows I mean "her friend" Sam, so we've always been able to talk about it. So far.]

"Don't even mention, Courtney. I don't want to talk about it."


Today McKenzie didn't want to talk about anything. I asked Mom if something was wrong, and Mom said it was just one of her new favorite phrases. "You were secretive like that, too, when you were her age," she said.

What makes some young people so secretive? Is it one of the preprogrammed pieces of personality that we're born with or without? And is sharing everything really healthier than not sharing much at all?

I hadn't thought about it before, but there were quirky aspects of my life I'd kept very private growing up. I'd collect lizards and stamps and other weird things and put them in boxes behind the stereo in the cabinet no one ever used. With art projects, I'd find an empty room with a door to close and work behind it for hours. When I was old enough to bike to the next street over, it was one of my favorite pastimes to pick up and go, singing along the way -- in secret. Maybe my tendencies toward introversion steered me to work solo. I didn't tell my family these activities were secret, it was just part of who I was.

Perhaps working in secret is a kid's way of finding out what she can do on her own. All those hours sculpting and beading and weaving macrame defined me for a while. It wasn't as though Kenz didn't want to talk at all (if she's anything like me, this blog will really dry up in ten years when every answer is a one word, "yeah" or "nah," and the occasional eloquent "mumble-mumble-andisaid, like, duh"); she just didn't want to talk about major developments on her end. Perhaps Kenzie and I are wired similarly, and "I don't want to talk about it," is less a secret, and a more way of saying she's growing up.


* Palas, short for Palačinky, are a Czech traditional food that my grandfather and Dad are in charge of making the morning of a special occasion family gathering. Sometimes Sunday qualifies as a special event at White House South. You start with a crepe-like foundation -- except far superior because it's Czech and made by my grandfather or Dad -- then, according to The Clare and Jan White House Cookbook, "Spread apricot jam liberally, roll up, and cover with real sour cream. There is no point being skimpy about any of this for the sake of diet. You either pig out on palačinky or don't even start."