Friday, February 15, 2008

Agua, Agua, Agua...

Water fountains and hoses are a child's playground - and it is a miracle at the little things that entertain the mind of a small child. I watched a little boy, fascinated by "woof-woof's" and "choo-choo's", as I ate dinner the other night, and watched him smile and say hello to everyone (and everything) that he bumped clumsily into as he continued to learn how to explore and walk. He must have been somewhere around two years old, I sat on the patio at Rory's in Edmonds, and his mother, although apparently a little tired, enjoyed his spirit of adventure, and seemed proud by his wanderlust - he never roamed very far, but far enough that he could look behind and see that someone was there, and that was encouragement enough to go back to finding trains and "woof-woof's" -

The vending machine - it had huge pictures of water bottles on it, I slowly followed them after dinner to the ferry, no real reason, and certainly not in a stalking way, but as a silent participant in their family, watching him walk hand in hand with his mother, her compassionate face looking down at him, and his excited face giggling back up at hers. When they hit the vending machine in the sterile ferry building, it was like a playground for the youngster - he was fascinated by the agua button, and was amazed that water actually came out when you pushed the button. He did a little body shake (it is funny to watch a child get that excited at that age, it is almost if their entire body is excited and they tense up with a smile that starts in their eyes and works its way down to their toes) - and exclaimed "Agua, Agua, Agua" - a nice respite from life on the road - not really being a part, but being able to silently stand aside and watch a family smile and play together.

I get in from Cincinnatti at 10:39 and am making a bee-line over to our weekend escape - it will be filled with tennis, running, ocean, and swimming, and will be wonderful to spend two days with no distractions other than those we choose to do - I sat in the hotel late last night and did all of my laundry, and re-packed my bag for early Monday travel - and that act in itself of being ready to go makes the weekend that much easier. My son has sworn that he will not sleep tonight until I get home, and the expectation is that I will be there - he is nine now, almost ten, but much like that little boy the other night, he still has the joy of a child, the huge grin when I get home, the free hugs, the crow landing on the log (a tickle torture that he hates to love), and a good frisbee game or baseball throw or football catch. I see a large amount of me in him - I want him to be able to do things that I was never able to do - make the difficult choices, live within himself, and keep that infantile simplicity of knowing that all you have to do is turn around, and most of the time, there is someone there to help you out.

Well - I need to post something funny - right now, I have made it through about 45 pages of "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" - and it is difficult to read fiction, but I am thinking of it as literature...

Funny story, tonight, flying back from Seattle, I dozed off on the plane, and had a pretty vivid dream - now when I dream, I tend to speak all kinds of gibberish, and move quite a bit in my sleep - sometimes I wake up feeling worse than I did before I went to bed (most times better) - but although I probably should not share the dream, I can assure the poor fifty something business man sitting next to me had a new appreciation for my dreams - I am not sure how I moved, or what I said, but all I received from him as a parting comment was "Sounds like you had a great flight" with particularly heavy inflection on "great" - yeah, it was a great flight...

Have a nice weekend everyone, and thanks for everything.

G

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