Last weekend we visited family out of state and spent a bit of time looking through some of the items that belong to my grandparents who have recently downsized a bit – well, a little bit more than a bit. They wanted us to take what we wanted, what we might use or might treasure. I was talking to my grandfather about how much we were enjoying looking through the “stuff” and he kindly asked me not to refer to it as “stuff”. But he knew what I meant. It is the physical manifestation of eighty years on this earth, decades of collection and adventures, hobbies and passions, writings and readings and listenings and tellings, some things of great worth and some of things greater than worth. And as in every one’s stuff, a bit of it is just “treasure” in the eye of the beholder. We gave our six-year-old free reign of these treasures with the only limitation being the size of the bed of our truck and at least the slim hope of having a place within our house to store it. To watch her dance around and around singing at the top of her lungs “I’m getting an antique globe, I’m getting an antique globe!”…well, it was a pretty cool thing to watch.
All week long I’ve told her that her dad and I picked out something pretty cool she might enjoy, this budding poet who is constantly scribbling her thoughts and poems down in notebooks. She’s waited patiently all week to have a few free moments to open it and look inside. A typewriter in a suitcase, ready for the clickety-clickety clack of her thoughts.
The writing has begun – a letter to her grandmother who is coming tomorrow for a visit. “We can build a parking lot one day when you are here or maybe we could make a world record.”
…..
Who knows? To me, the gift of a blank page to write on is an endless possiblity.
And the apology I mentioned earlier? It’s for this:
Heard from this kid as we loaded up our family and our clean laundry and our new things into our truck to head back home…
“Me…check! The baby…check! Mom…check! Dad…check! Laundry…check! Old fashioned stuff…CHECK!”
A blank page–endless possibilities!!!!!