"but please do put everything away when you are done playing", i told her, as she busied herself with transforming the entire living room floor into a ship, using wooden bricks, vases, books, glass beads and every other imaginable object she would find around.
"but i want to keep my ship here as it is, even as i am away at my grandparents'".
"no, this won't do - we will stumble upon these things, besides guests might come and then what".
"no problem, we will invite them onto the ship, no?"
"well..." - i wanted to say something but then i realized i didn't exactly find any tenable argument as to why we couldn't do that. she looked at me, then to her ship again, sprawling over the floor as we were speaking:
"it is so boring to live as you do. your grown-up world is so boring. you only have rooms, and no ships hidden in them any longer".
i couldn't make out the expression on her face when she said this, something between sadness and bewilderment.
(perhaps it is true that, as we grow old, we only live in the shadows of what once was a luminous world filled with being)
a very wise child. :)
ReplyDeleteJust like Peter Pan and the lost boys. We tend to forget what it's like to be a child
ReplyDeleteclearly she is doing a brilliant job raising you, as my children have done with me:)
ReplyDeleteshe is staring long and hard into her shadow. i wonder what it is she sees there.
xo
erin
Roxana, como dijo Góngora: sombras suele vestir...
ReplyDeleteNosotros, los fantasmas, de una niñez ida...
si eu cred la fel adica ceea ce a spus ea, si in fiecare zi ma gandesc la asta. nu gasesc raspuns pentru a eluda chestiunea cumsecade. tot ceea ce fac incercand sa ma pastrez pe nava este,inevitabil,amendat, aproape tot este,acum,ceea ce spune acel cuvant lung: autodistrugere,oricat ar parea de paradoxal...nu stiu de ce,dar nu pot scrie mai departe,ma coplesesc teribil de multe lucruri, ca si cand nu as mai fi avut loc langa Noe...
ReplyDeleteanother beautiful masterpeice.
ReplyDeleteIfind the words of the princess of the bridge to be poignant.-your grown up world is so boring...
that is soooooo sweet that she wants to transform the livingroom into a ship and also I find this to be profound.a ship can represent a voyage of the heart and mind and a physical voyage as she is going to her grandparents.It is stunningly beautiful child play.
and yes Roxana(tease but...) you could transform your livingroom into a ship and when your guests arrive you could play theatre games. well wouldnt that be fun though seriously to have one room in the house to allow for that kind of creative play also!
anyway us adults have moved too far away from a child's imaginative world but I feel so blessed that I do visual art and creative writing as you do. isnt it wonderful that we can play this way and embark on the ship of our imagination.but yes it can be serious play -revolutions of the mind and heart and a serious metaphor as the princess of light has acknowledged- a ship of fantasy.
ah how sweet perhaps she is concerned on one level about leaving her home and you and so is constructing her ship for until she returns and makes that voyage back home.
HUGS to you both♥♥
ce frumos si adevarat. si, cum zice pensum, so wise.
ReplyDeleteshe is absolutely right:-)
ReplyDeleteby a great and perfect coincidence, i came to this post just moments after reading these sentences
Je pense quelquefois que si j'écris encore, c'est, ou ce devrait être avant tout pour rassembler les fragments, plus ou moins lumineux et probants, d'une joie dont on serait tenté de croire qu'elle a explosé un jour, il y a longtemps, comme une étoile intérieure, et répandu sa poussière en nous. Qu'un peu de cette poussière s'allume dans un regard, c'est sans doute ce qui nous trouble, nous enchante ou nous égare le plus; mais c'est, tout bien réfléchi, moins étrange que de surprendre son éclat, ou le reflet de cet éclat fragmenté, dans la nature. Du moins ces reflets auront-ils été pour moi l'origine de bien des rêveries,...
Philippe Jaccottet, Le cerisier
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Maybe the rooms get emptier, but the photos are all the more filled with being...
ReplyDeleteI will turn 70 this year. I suppose it can be rightly said that I am growing old. However, there are some ways...some very deep ways...in which I steadfastly refuse to grow UP!
ReplyDeleteWhat you missed is the fact (i'm referring to soft facts, just to be clear) that guests, you can tell them by their fancy hats, and red noses--if it's cold out, love to play in make-believe ships. Though this may come as a surprise to you, you may want satisfy yourself of the veracity of my findings the next time unannounced company arrives on deck and the living room floor is littered with nautical implements.
ReplyDeleteChildren remind us at times of what we once were. It takes a while to get egocentric, and it serves us as adults, I suppose. Yet we still ache to see a child in the pre-logical and magical world we've abandoned. We teach them to be logical, all the while wishing we could be like them again.
ReplyDeletethank you dear friends, i will come back to your comments later, tonight i feel in the mood for some music and not so many words :-)
ReplyDeleteValuable childhood lessons in sailing the seas between sadness and bewilderment; relieved by occasionally washing ashore on a joy-filled island.
ReplyDelete