ooo, canada!

They opened a treasure chest that they’ve had, I don’t know how long…as long as I’ve been here…sat together on the sofa as they cracked open the lid, their legs kicking at the knees in an improbable Christopher-Robin manner, and as the lid fell back, simultaneously they said,

“Ooo-ooo!”

What is it that makes something old and familiar consistently wonderful and awe-inspiring?

I spend my energy trying to devise new activities, innovative but simple projects, and they just want to crack open their old treasure box full of toys they already know, and know what to do with.

Then they abandon that toy and just play airplane, sitting on the same sofa, holding their school backpacks that they’ve stuffed with random junk from the playroom; they tell each other where they are and where they are going—canada, for no reason I know—then they move into another room and suddenly they are in a hotel. And that’s it. They are just there and it’s blowing their mind, clearly. Suddenly conversation ceases; alarmed, I look over and find that they have returned to the airplane, a more compelling setting than the hotel room, apparently. They are not looking at me—what are they looking at? They both say, low and breathless, leaning over the arm of the sofa,

“Ooooo, Canada!”

They remember things I did or said from days and weeks ago, and when I come down in the morning they say, “Remember when you cried like a baby? Remember when you made that face? Do it again! I want to see you do it again!”

And so I did it.

I say we can walk to the playground, down where the ducks live, and they look at me for a moment and then they say,

“Or…we can go to that playground out there,” and they point to their backyard.

They’ll get worked up in theory over the foreign, but they prefer to stick with the familiar for actual use.

Maybe it’s because they know what to do with it. Maybe it’s because they can make it whatever they want it to be.

(first published on 7.9.07, 8.58am)