She’s been working on some sort of top secret project upstairs for this coming Sunday. I know what it is because it is hidden in plain sight right there on her easel. But she’s still at the age where if she begs me at the top of her lungs for the entire duration of my ascent up the stairs to the top floor not to look at it, I simply avert my eyes and pretend that I don’t have a little condition called peripheral vision. It seems to work. She’s watching me like a hawk the entire time though, and if my eyes happen to wander towards any object in the room that might be within spitting distance of this covert project she shrills at me again “Mom, DON’T look!!”
Yesterday morning she discovered that her scissors were missing. We scoured the place but couldn’t find them. Then last night she finished off her glue stick, pushing it down until only a trace remained at the bottom of the apparatus. So she made a list. And now, because anything of importance seems to be worthy of billboard status, she adds the details to the list. And this lover of perspective, forced or real, in everything she draws now, adds posts in the front and smaller posts in the rear…you know…for structural stability. Glue sticks and kid’s scissors are pretty important things right now – there’s no way she’s letting this thing blow down in a windstorm anytime soon.
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The reading is something to behold. Where we used to listen to her weave her own made up stories into the portions of the books that she had memorized through repeated readings, now we listen to her move through these new, more elaborate books word by word, sentence by sentence. This is one of the best parts of the day for me. And with the new studio space in the back room of this floor, I can sit and work and listen to my heart’s content. At least until I feel the need to grab the camera and take a few shots of my own. When I look at these fifty years from now I think I’ll be able to remember the sound of her voice reading into the night, one book after another.
