Last night the little one and I took a picnic over to the park. She wanted to picnic near “my party” which means the pavilion where her party will be later this summer. She alternated between serious consumption of sliced tomatoes and barbeque chips and skipping back and forth between the now empty pavilion and our blanket on the lawn. She sang made up songs about birthdays and friends and candles and being three, and the sun spilled through the trees and made everything golden. When she returned each time to the blanket and the spread she told me about her adventures as if I weren’t watching her movements from afar. The sun lit up the back of her head and her hair looked like spun gold and her face filled up with barbeque dust and the grins that come from truly being happy in that place.
I was so very happy in that place as well, even though I wiped the barbeque dust from my chin with a napkin. Childhood is so much more freeing, isn’t it?
