Let us be about
imagining the bridges
we could be building
Child’s play
play
Imagination
When you are six
and visiting your Franna
you always check the candy dish
today you would find
miniature Reese’s Cups
and when you are tired
of playing Connect Four
you and your Franna
might build a tower
out of the checkers
in an ABABAB pattern
and you might fashion
a tiny crown
out of the gold Reese’s foil
and turn the licked-clean
ridged brown candy paper
into hair
that you place on top
of the checker tower
The Tall Queen,
you would say,
just as she falls
and splatters her checker parts
across the table
The Tall Queen
has fallen in battle!
you would exclaim
(methinks that may
be the influence
of your reading
Narnia books)
but at any rate,
a Shorter Queen seems to do
especially when you ask your Franna
for eyes and a mouth
and she gives you labels
and pens
so you can make them yourself
and in answer to your question:
No, I do not think her crown looks
too much like a Viking hat
although surely the Vikings
had queens,
just saying
(to me she looks like she stepped
right out of Wonderland)
but above all
I think the whole moral
of the story here
is that everything which enters
your realm
when you are six
has a purpose
and is
never wasted
Z is for… zapple
Breakfast duty at school… I see raised hands.
I go over.
I am expecting one of the following:
I can’t open my milk.
I can’t open this [bag of apple slices].
Can I have a paper towel? I spilled my ____.
Can I have a cup of water/a spoon/a fork/ another biscuit?
I have my responses ready:
Have you tried?
Have you tried?
How did this happen?
Put on your mask and go get it (x3)… and sorry, you only get one.
This is what happens, however, when I get to the little girl sitting with her sister and cousin:
Child: Look, my apple has a z on it.
Me: A z?
[Child holds up apple slice. Peel has been nibbled so that, yes, a sort of letter z remains]
Me: Wow, that IS a z. I guess you could say z is for apple. No—zapple!
[Child giggles]
Child: Yeah, I can eat it and have magic powers. [waggles fingers in air like a magician. Of sorts]
Older Sister [in spite of herself]: Yeah, you can go ZAP! [performs a ZAP with an air wand]
Even Older Cousin [even more in spite of herself]: Or, you could ZOOM.
Me: Ooo, yes! After eating the zapple, you could zap and zoom down the hall to discover a zebra peeking out of a room…
[offstage light shines on the faces of all three children]
Me [seizing the moment]: That would make a great story, wouldn’t it?
Even Older Cousin [with a determined nod]: I’m gonna start typing it on my Chromebook as soon as I get to class…
I leave them talking excitedly about What Happens Next.
Zapples clearly are magical.
*******
with thanks to Two Writing Teachers for the Slice of Zapple… er, Slice of LIFE Story Challenge every day in the month of March. This is my sixth year participating.
A game played long ago
This morning I woke to the sounds of wind gusts and snowflakes striking the window…brought back the memory of my oldest boy and a game we played long ago. A pantoum:
A game played long ago:
Little boy crawling into bed, whispering
“The North Wind will blow,
we will have snow!”
Little boy crawling into bed, whispering
“It’s so cold—I can’t get warm.
We will have snow!
Let me sleep here in your arms.”
“It’s so cold—I can’t get warm.
Until I am grown and gone,
let me sleep here in your arms”
—the memory of these moments!
Until I am dead and gone
the North Wind will blow
the memory of these moments,
a game played long ago.
Christmas angel with style
Have you ever seen an angel
sporting sparkly wings
on a festive llama dress
with maroon Chuck Taylors
and assorted barrettes
seriously chomping
a mouthful of candy cane?
I have.
One came to my house
on Christmas Eve.
Perhaps you’ll see one, too,
if you only believe.
❤ Merry Christmas ❤
Preparing
She comes into the house, suitcase in tow, little face aglow at spending a couple of nights while her parents keep doctor’s appointments. She hugs them good-bye and before they’re halfway down the sidewalk, she grabs my hand:
“Franna, want to play with me?”
Isn’t there only one answer to this question?
“Of course! What do you want to play?”
“Family.”
Ah.
We head to “her” room, where I keep books and blocks and bears and dolls and even a couple of old baby blankets for wrapping them. She’s always the mom. I am always the oldest child. I have to help her hold, feed, and potty-train the toys…er, my siblings.
“First I need to unpack,” she announces.
“Okay,” I say, as she unzips her suitcase, navy-blue with pink and white unicorns. “So, tomorrow we find out if you’re having a brother or sister! Isn’t it exciting?”
She nods: “I want a sister.”
“I know you do…but a brother would be nice, too” (because her parents and I think the baby is a boy).
She nods again, pulling a couple of stuffed animals out of her suitcase. She sets them on the bed. “Mama told me to be happy if it’s a boy.”
I am about to speak but just then, I notice something…
She’s brought Allioop, the raggedy orange cat that belonged to my son when he was little. She’s dressed him in Curious George’s T-shirt. He leans against the pillow beside a woolly bear sporting a pastel nightcap.
Allioop and the bear are wearing diapers.
“Did you put these diapers on your toys?”
“Yes. I’m practicing for the baby. Watch…” She shows me how to remove and replace the diapers with their little Velcro tabs.
Strikes me as one of the greatest acts of love I’ve seen.
Preparing.
Her parents FaceTimed to tell us that the new baby is, in fact, a girl.
My granddaughter, who’s five, bounced up and down with joy:
“My wish came true!”
She later told my son that she can’t wait to teach her sister the word “photosynthesis.”
Dear Baby, what a wealth of love surrounds you, already.
*******
–with thanks to the Two Writing Teachers community for the weekly Slice of Life Story Challenge.
Fancy
She is sitting on my lap, scrolling on my phone.
—Franna, I want these.
—Ooooo, so pretty! I love those gloves.
—(nodding) Yes, and the crown. If I have them I will be SO fancy.
—(chuckling) Hmmm…I’ll see what I can do.
She adores being “fancy.” She’s adopted the word all on her own. I suspect Fancy Nancy books may have influenced this. Elsa in Frozen certainly has, hence the request for these particular ice-blue gloves and tiara—sorry, “crown,” my granddaughter declares. At four years of age, she can slink around the house like any haute couture fashion model, pausing with her face turned to one hiked little shoulder, eyes half-lidded…she can’t hold the pose for long, as the rest of us, her loyal subjects, dissolve with laughter.
—Oh my, you are so fancy, we tell her.
—Of course, she replies in her “fancy” voice, blinking slowly, before erupting in giggles and breaking her own spell.
The little package is waiting for her the next time she arrives.
No words for the magic on her face when she opens it, for the way she gingerly caresses the plastic pendant, as if it were the Hope Diamond. Within seconds she’s all decked out in her fancy finery. For the remainder of her visit, she walks with a regal air and won’t remove those gloves for anything except her breakfast of French toast.
I suspect she knows she’s the queen of our hearts.
One must be fancy even while helping to set up Christmas decorations.
In my humble opinion, the rest of the ensemble was necessary. ❤
*******
Inspired by SOS — Sharing Our Stories: Magic in a Blog. This week’s prompt was “fancy,” with this quote from Donald Miller: “Everybody wants to be someone fancy. Even if they’re just shy.” If you write or want to write just for the magic of it, consider this your invitation to join us. #sosmagic
Childhood loves: memoir poem
If there were a portal
from Now to Then
and I passed through
where would I find myself
what would I do
what would I see
of my childhood me
raggedy white blanket
satin trim pulling loose
rub rub rubbing
my silky string
between my fingers
and over my nose
as I suck my thumb
Pa-Pa pumping a spinning top
reds pinks blues swirling
like rainbow smoke
—it’s playing music! Like an organ
—what is that song what is that song
I can play Grandma’s organ
shiny pretty red-brown wood
with curved legs
she presses my fingers on the white keys
— 5653 5653
that is Silent Night
oh and I am supposed to be holding
the white C button down
I can drive my little red car
along the sidewalks
in front of the shops
by pumping pedals
while Granddaddy watches
from the bench
sometimes he calls me Duck or Pig
I do not know why
but it is good
Daddy’s buying a house
I do not like the way it smells
like old old coffee
except that a neighbor kid shows me
that there’s a door in the side
of the cement back steps
when we open it
an even older smell comes out
past dangling cobwebs
on strange cool air
—there’s a game under here, in a box
soft with forgottenness for so long
pictures of ghosts mildewing on the top
a roly-poly scurries away in the dust
there’s a lot of kids to play with
and we run
and run and run and run
around my new backyard
—oh no, Daddy’s going to be mad
we snapped his little tree
—here, help me hold these two parts together
while we pray for God to glue them back
it didn’t work
but it’s not so bad
except for the little tree
Mama’s friends bring their skinny black dog
named Thing
yeah I know Thing on The Addams Family
it’s just a hand in a box
Thing digs a hole in the backyard
my sister and I make it bigger
and bigger and bigger
it’s a giant crater
we pull out a giant smooth white rock
maybe a dinosaur’s egg
I smell the clay, orange, gray
feel its slickness between my fingers
while we dig to the other side of the world
China
Ding-dong, Avon calling
look at all these tiny white tubes of lipsticks
they smell so clean
—can you believe there’s perfume
in this bottle made like a tree
—see when you take off the green top
and push the bluebird’s tail
it sprays
Bird of paradise bird of paradise
my own made-up song
I sing it in the tub
while the white hunk of Ivory soap
floats in the cloudy water
At Grandma’s house in the summertime
I find a stack of old records
I put them on the record player
while I dig through a tall wicker basket
of dresses
fancy ones
the pink one is satin covered with tulle
but the blue one is my favorite
with the rows and rows of lace on the skirt
reaching almost to the floor
when I put it on
I’m a princess
singing
I’ll buy you a diamond ring, my friend
if it makes you feel all right
I’ll get you anything my friend
if it makes you feel all right
‘Cause I don’t care too
much for money
Money can’t buy me love
and when I am tired of that
and when the long day is done
I’ll sit by Grandma here in the floor
where she spreads the newspaper open
on the braided rug
I’ll read the funnies
or the The Mini Page
or maybe even Reader’s Digest
Granddaddy comes over
freshly-shaved, in his pajamas
for me to hug his neck
and give him a kiss
on his smooth Old Spice cheek
while outside in summer dusk
cicadas sing
and sing and sing, so loud
and never stop
now I lay me down to sleep
my childhood loves to always keep
Magic find on Etsy: Vintage Avon spray bottle with Her Prettiness Enchanted Cologne Mist.
Not so sure how enchanting the scent would be after all this time…
that this still exists, however, is surely evidence of one powerful spell.
*******
Thanks to Ruth Ayres on SOS: Magic in a Blog for the invitation to return to childhood loves, to linger there for a while, and to bring something back.
Thanks also to the Poetry Friday-ers and to Mary Lee for hosting this week’s Roundup.
Oh yeah and thanks to The Beatles for the song “Can’t Buy Me Love” — and all the others.
Child’s play
My granddaughter, age four, has a touch of cold. She told her dad (my son): “I think I have a little bit of coronavirus.” Yesterday she told the family that that her new Barbie bakery had to close down because “people in her town got coronavirus.”
Her understanding of such stark realities pierces my heart. Her comments also take me back to something I learned in my final high school English class, where I sat horror-struck, riveted, as my teacher painted a verbal image of London in the bubonic plague (which also originated in China):
This was the second and worst wave … people were superstitious about a catastrophic event occuring in 1666, with the Biblical symbolism of three sixes together, but the plague struck the year before, 1665 … spread by fleas on black rats … First you must understand the condition of London at the time. The characteristic fog was mingled with black smoke from factories and the coal-fires of a terribly overcrowded city. There was no sanitation; people dumped their waste from windows—that’s where the phrase “Gardy-loo!” originated, from the French “garde a l’eau!”—”watch out for the water!” It’s what people shouted to warn those walking on the street below, so they could jump out of the way when the buckets and chamber pots were dumped. Raw sewage ran in the streets … human and animal … just imagine what was on people’s shoes, on the hems of ladies’ long dresses … and during the plague, bodies also lay in the streets, where people fell dead… this sparked the children to invent a new game: Ring-Around-the-Rosie …
—What?
Ring-Around-the Rosie? It’s a silly, giddy game. How many times had I played it as a child, with neighborhood kids or schoolmates, trying to pull each other around the circle of our joined hands faster and faster, until we deliberately made ourselves fall?
“Ring-Around-the-Rosie” was originally “Ring a ring of roses,” funeral wreaths for the dead. “Pocket full of posie” was a reference to the nosegays people carried when they had to walk in the streets—flowers held to the nose to counteract the stench, or a handkerchief doused with cologne, if they were wealthy enough to have it. “Ashes, ashes”—at the time, it was “rashes, rashes,” indicating the discoloration of the skin from bursting lymph nodes, or “buboes,” hence the name “bubonic plague.” And “we all fall down” … that’s self-explanatory. It’s what the children saw…
That’s an indelible image: Children joining hands in the streets, chanting, whirling around faster and faster— laughing—against that ghastly backdrop. It’s how they interpreted and internalized events, how they coped with their world—through play.
The game remains with us centuries afterward. In our time, it’s indicative of the carefree joy of childhood; the darkness is long forgotten.
That’s what play does: defeats the demons, diminishes fear, turns the dark into light. It’s the way children communicate their learning about the world. It’s release, acceptance, solace, safety. It’s the bright, creationary force in a child’s domain: play is within the child’s control when nothing else is.
Its value, inestimable.
Barbie’s bakery will re-open, I am sure, for our businesses will. Our times are grim at present, but we know what causes disease to spread. We understand (most of us, let’s hope) that for now we have to keep our physical distance, for our greater good. We know the value of hygiene. We shall have to join hands—figuratively— in many different ways; we shall be pulled, and strained, but as long as we don’t succumb to panic, and if we submit to wisdom, we shall not fall.
And our children?
They’ll keep on playing.
And watching.
“We should respect with humility the bright holiness of childhood.”
-Janusz Korczak
Photo: “Circle of Peace” bronze sculpture by Gary Lee Price (children playing Ring-Around-the-Rosie). Blake Bolinger. CC BY.
lit bits and pieces 