I should have known better, checking my DuoLingo app in front of Jim, my five-year-old grandson. But my mind was muddled after spending six hours on a flight from Newark to Seattle, and I simply could not remember if I had completed a language lesson that day. I did not want to imperil my 121-day streak. So I checked it.
Jim sidled up next to me, staring at my phone. Not unlike most children his age, Jim is fascinated with any app that looks the least bit like a game. Perhaps if I had left it at checking my streak.
But my hubris got the better part of me. I just had to check my league status. The night before I made a jump in the leaderboard, to the Obsidian league, the penultimate DuoLingo league. I had just barely eked in, completing just enough short lessons in order to earn just enough points to land in the top ten users who advanced. I knew last week’s achievement was probably my glass ceiling. So I just wanted to see that big, black gem and do one last mental victory lap before I settled into a week of caring for Jim while Justine and Nathan headed for a conference in Chicago.
“What’s that, Granma?” Jim asked.
“Oh, it’s just Granma’s DuoLingo,” I said. I hoped a quick, short answer would satisfy his curiosity.
It did not.
“Huh?” he said.
“Well,” I started in. “You remember that Granma and Pop Pop used to live in Japan when we were young, right? You see, we were missionaries, and we used to speak Japanese everyday. Well, that was a long time ago and I’m getting old and I’ve forgotten how to speak Japanese, so I am using DuoLingo to try to relearn it again.”
“But what’s that?” he asked, pointing to the large black Obsidian gem at the top of the screen.
So much for my explanation. The black gem was all he cared about.
“That’s an Obsidian gem,” I said. “It tells me what league that I’m in. A league is a group of 50 people from around the world who are all learning another language. We all get points for doing lessons and we compete against each other. If you are in the top ten on Sunday night, you get to move up to the next league. I’m in the Obsidian league.”
He looked at the list of names and point numbers beneath the Obsidian gem. Then he asked, “Which number are you?”
I scrolled down. I pointed to my screen name “Baka,” the Japanese word for fool. I had adopted the moniker as a tribute to my grandson Marshall, his interpretation of the word grandma when he was two years old. Although he had come upon that nickname by babbling, the word had an uncanny way of reminding me of my place in the universe at the precise moments I needed reminding.
Baka stood at 48. The number was in red. I was one of the five players in danger of being demoted to the Pearl league at the end of the week. But the week was still very young, six days to go.
“You’re not doing very well Granma,” Jim observed.
Clunk went my hubris. Obviously he did not recognize my achievement. Just being in the Obsidian league, surrounded by 49 other such worthy people, was an honor.
“You need to do something,” he urged. He was concerned.
“Well, I guess you can help me practice some more,” I said.
I opened up a lesson on clothing, and for the next few minutes we did a lesson together. If the sentence to be translated was in English, he would read it to me, and I would point to the correct Japanese kanji from the word bank, which he would select. If the sentence to be translated was in Japanese, I would say the translation out loud and he would select the appropriate English words from the word bank. Because Jim is a new reader, he enjoyed the challenge. And he enjoyed seeing the green bar across the screen if my answer was correct. If I were wrong, a red bar appeared, and Jim would say, “Awww,” but then add, “I know you can do it next time, Granma.”
I had my grandson, whom I had not seen for several months, nestled in my arms on my lap. He had a game with buttons to push. This was nirvana. At least until we finished our first lesson.
“Let’s see where you are now,” Jim said.
We checked. I had moved up two slots. Still in danger of demotion, but two steps closer to safety.
Jim was still very concerned. “We’ve got to do some more, Granma,” Jim said. Moving up the leaderboard took more effort than he had imagined.
We did a few more lessons, and slowly I moved up, out of danger of being demoted. Jim was encouraged that I was making progress, but still very anxious. I felt like a fool for having sucked my grandson into this little competition.
Soon, however, it was time for a bath, books, scriptures, and prayers. Reluctantly, we stopped.
After Jim was in bed, I pulled out my phone. Thanks to him, I was sleepless in Seattle. I kept hearing him say, “Granma, you’ve got to do better.” So I hammered out several more lessons before I finally fell fitfully asleep for a few hours. Then because my body was still on East Coast time, I awoke at 4 a.m. and began again. I was still doing more lessons when Jim came into my room, rubbing his eyes with one hand and carrying a box of checkers with the other.
“Look, Jim, look,” I proudly said, waving my phone screen. “I’ve moved up. I’m at 27.”
He took my phone. He adroitly scrolled up to the top. Then he looked at my quizzically, trying to determine if his Granma was trying to pull the wool over his eyes. He would have none of it. There was no fooling Jim. He knew 27 was a very long way from first place.
“But look how far you are from the top, Granma,” he said.
And it was then that I realized what my husband’s genes had wrought. Jim was no more willing to let my DuoLingo slide than his father had been to go to bed at night as an eighth grader in his quest to better his academic nemesis or to let a shuttlecock land out of bounds in a friendly game of badminton in his high school gym class, a dive that required a trip to the emergency room. What was I to expect from the only child of my most competitive child? Jim was a competitor.
I like to think of myself as a warm and fuzzy mother (and grandmother). I encouraged cooperation and love. When my children were adolescents, a friend remarked she wished her children could be more loving like mine. And my children were loving and kind. Nathan and Chrissy were so solicitous of each other, they were once mistaken for boyfriend and girlfriend. Nonetheless, my friend was not privy to our family’s underbelly. Despite my gentle efforts, our Stornetta clan was still a wee bit competitive.
I first realized this when five-year-old Nathan came to me in tears after a game of Monopoly, Jr. with my husband. When I asked Scott why he had not let Nathan win, he did not understand my question. There was no such thing as a friendly game, whether it was Monopoly, Jr. or a game of basketball. My thumb injured at the hand of my husband in a family basketball game had proved that. Whether it was hurling puns in an effort to outdo each other or quickly entering words in our nightly family New York Times mini crossword puzzle, we competed. And like his father Nathan, who holds the family crossword record at 12 seconds, Jim was used to winning.
Even though my first morning was a snow day (Who knew there was such a thing as a snow day in Seattle?), our day was anything but languid and lazy. That day and that week as well was defined by games. There were checkers, Chinese checkers, Connect Four, soccer shoot-outs, and Mario Cart. And always DuoLingo. Oh, our days were filled with many more things than games--cuddling and chatting each morning and cuddling and telling stories to each other every night, waiting at the bus stop, checking the mailbox, walking the dog, watching Aladdin (and just a few other shows), shopping at Costco, reading Dog Man and Matilda, baking cookies, and dining at the only three fast food enterprises on Mercer Island. (Cook dinner? Not me. I was on vacation, after all.) But the undercurrent was competition.
And what a delightful competition it was. Jim was so joyfully transparent, as only a five-year-old can be. At checkers, Jim was intent, strategic, and rule-conscious, not unlike his father. He played with a confidence that allowed him to win easily and graciously lose. At Connect Four I was amused to see Jim’s internal battle between natural instinct and good sportsmanship. There were always a few brief moments of unabashed glee whenever he trounced me (more times than I am willing to admit) until his well-rehearsed manners kicked in.
Then he would say, “It’s O.K, Granma. Keep trying. You can do it. Maybe next time you’ll win.”
And I would smile, a proud granma smile, at the politely parroted phrases he undoubtedly had heard from his parents.
Jim the negotiator emerged during our soccer shootout in the basement when I astonished us both by my knack for kicking the fluffy, plush soccer ball just so in our makeshift goals. Each time I was on the cusp of winning a match, he quickly renegotiated the number of points necessary to win, from 10 to 15, 15 to 20, and then 20 and 25. I chuckled at how nimbly he negotiated. This was not his first rodeo. But, of course, after a few games, his ability to negotiate was moot, for he had learned to anticipate my moves.
Then there was the exasperated expert who quickly tried to school me in the finer art of playing Mario Kart on his Nintendo Switch. He did not realize I had long since honed my ability to game with a reliable, convenient inertia learned while playing Halo with his Uncle Daniel almost twenty years ago. Jim raged with intensity as his cart raced along the course competing not just against me but also against ten other animated drivers. When he did glance over at my screen, he would urgently try to goad me into action with a quick, “C’mon granma. You’re losing.” Alas, I was always destined to be last, for I was only holding the remote, occasionally pressing a button, just hoping I would not crash.
But it was our game of Chinese Checkers that I found the most gratifying. Given Jim’s prowess at checkers, I had assumed I could play to win. Yet just as I was to drop my last peg in the final hole of my home triangle, winning the game, a petulant Jim emerged. It seems I had not understood the nuances of Chinese checkers with him. As he explained it, I could not put my winning peg in until he was ready to put his winning peg in on the other side of the board. The old “everybody is a winner” ethic of Tee-ball. So as my final peg danced around the board until we both could win, I smiled. In changing the rules, my ever-competitive son had learned to concede to the fragile ego of his ever-competitive, typical five-year-old. There was yet a bit of the warm and fuzzy me in Nathan. Perhaps he remembered his tears when he lost that Monopoly, Jr. game to his ever-competitive father.
Amidst all these games, DuoLingo was ever present. Every morning and every evening Jim checked my status. We did a few lessons together every day. At home, at the Subway, even at the bus stop. When he was asleep or at school, I slaved away at those lessons, earning point after point. I did not want to disappoint my grandson. I had never worked so hard at this casual little hobby.
But before I knew it, my week of games with Jim was drawing to a close. It was Sunday morning, Nathan and Justine were home, and thanks to Jim’s persistence, I was in sixth place on the DuoLingo leaderboard--a position not entirely satisfying to Jim, but highly satisfying for me. It was good enough to get promoted to the Diamond league. There was nowhere else to go. I went to church smug.
Two hours later, as we were leaving the church, I once more checked my status on my phone, almost as an afterthought. I was shocked. I had been sniped. I was no longer in the top ten. And the minutes were ticking away. Only two hours until Judgment Day.
As soon as we got home, I sat down and started working.
Soon Jim was looking over my shoulder.
“Can I help you, Granma?” he asked.
“Wel-l-l-l . . . ,” I hesitated.
The minutes were ticking away. The calculus was difficult. Seven hours until I left for the airport. Only an hour and a half until the week’s competition closed. Would I regret not spending my final moments with my grandson? It might be months until I saw Jim again. Yet could I really sacrifice a week’s worth of effort in the final hour? After all, wasn’t I really doing it just for him?
And so I abandoned my DuoLingo buddy. Perhaps a little too quickly. I felt like a devoted mother wearing a newly dry-cleaned suit who shoos away her toddler with sticky, gooey hands: guilty, but necessarily expedient.
“Jim,” I said. “In just a minute, you can help me.” My guilt was slightly assuaged.
But that minute soon turned into ten. Then twenty. The time crunch made me jittery. I kept making mistake after mistake. I kept losing hearts. Which meant I had to go back and earn more hearts in order to keep playing. Which meant my progress was very slow.
Finally, I pushed my way back into the top ten. I checked the time. Twenty minutes left. And yet, only a few points separated me from demotion. I looked around. Jim was no longer waiting to help. I frantically continued. I worked up until the last minute.
“Yosh-,” I shouted, when time ran out, thrusting my arms up into the air, clenching my fists in a victory salute to a crowd of no one but myself. I was in the Diamond league.
“I did it. I did it,” I yelled a few seconds later, lest anyone had not understood from enthusiasm the Japanese equivalent of an exuberant “all right.”
I looked around. Justine was esconced in the living room couch, rapt in a book. I could hear Jim downstairs waging a soccer battle with Nathan. Even Ruthie, the dog, tucked neatly in the crook of Justine’s arm did not look up nor her wag to acknowledge my triumph.
Victory was sweet, but, oh, so solitary. And hollow.
And for just a brief moment, clarity echoed in that hollowness. Maybe I was not simply succumbing to Jim’s goading. Maybe it was not just Stornetta genes. I was only a Stornetta by marriage, but in my moment of truth, maybe I was inherently just as cutthroat as those bearing the Stornetta name by birth. A fissure cracked in my Rameumpton tower carefully built over three decades by my own personal cult of motherhood and the otherness of my in-law status. I was one of them. I was a Stornetta.
I felt sheepish and remorseful. I had abandoned my game buddy in a clutch. So I made efforts to atone in my remaining five hours. I helped make dinner. I helped clean up. Then I cuddled intently with Jim as I read Dogman to him one last time.
And yet, despite my epiphany, despite my repentant heart, remnants of my pride lingered. I still could not let my DuoLingo achievement go unnoticed. I needed someone else to know. After several chapters, I casually mentioned to Jim that I had indeed made it into the Diamond league.
Jim demanded proof. “Let me see,” he said.
I showed him my phone.
“But Granma,” he said, after looking at the screen. “You were only number 8.”
Alas, not good enough for my grandson. I was tempted to remind him that even the medical student who ranks last in his or her class is still called a doctor. Despite my ranking, I was in the Diamond league, nonetheless. But I did not have the time to explain the analogy. It was time to bid adieu. Instead I got my suitcase, hugged him, oh so tightly, showered him with kisses, and said good-bye.
Soon I was settled into my aisle seat, readying for a long redeye flight destined to be a bit more comfortable than usual given the vacant center seat. I congratuated myself. All in all Jim and I had spent a thoroughly pleasant, mostly successful week together. He did not miss the bus once. Not once did the puppy Ruthie have an accident in the house. I had navigated the unfamiliar roads of Mercer Island and her neighboring environs in an unfamiliar car without incident or accidents. There were no temper tantrums. Just quality Granma-Jim time. My brief descent down the rabbit hole of DuoLingo competitiveness was an anomaly, a few hours ill-spent. I nestled into my pillow, pulled up my coat snug and warm around me, and basked in the memory of a week well spent.
And then as my coat shifted, my phone slipped out just a tad from my coat pocket. I stared at it for a minute, tempted. Well, I do need to put my phone into flight mode, I thought. I pulled it out. My thumb flicked the phone screen on and then hovered over the Settings icon. But the mesmerizing googly eyes of Duo, the green DuoLingo owl mascot, beckoned. I could not resist, I could not put my phone to sleep without checking my status just one more time. The Diamond still pulsed brightly.
Postscript:
I somehow never got around to posting this pre-pandemic post. I returned from Seattle on Martin Luther King Day 2020, just as Covid was percolating. What changes a year has made. I was so happy to have gotten in a trip to see Nathan, Justine, and Jim in before the full force of the pandemic released itself.
A few things have changed on my DuoLingo app in this past year. The leaderboard was changed from 50 to 30. Not sure if that makes it harder or not. I have also learned a few tricks to make using the app easier, the most important being that one can repeat past lessons to rack up heart points. Had I known that then, my week playing in Seattle might not have been so intense.
My streak at DuoLingo now stands at 573 days. I am still debating what number is right one to call it a day. I have had a few more obsession fueled days. A year ago, on Easter weekend, the app added lessons on Katakana characters, which allowed me to quickly do enough lessons to obsess enough to finish the week in first place in the Diamond league. After that pinnacle, my obsession has subsided. I did maintain my Diamond level for an entire year, but then I got distracted. This MLK day, I slipped back into the Obsidian league, where I am content. Each week I practice just a bit of Japanese to remember a few phrases, but not nearly enough to approach fluency.
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