Aydan, who’s almost two and has earned his current nickname - “Destructor”, was doing his job, exploring his world - getting into this or that. While Lorelei, who soon will turn five, was directing yet another play – one filled with fairies and mermaids, at the world renowned Dining Room Table Theater.
On the living room couch sat Nalu, the one and only “boy” mermaid…or is it “merman”, from Lorelei’s collection – the one with straggly orange hair and a tag that’s been nearly chewed off (long ago, one of our nicknames for Lorelei was “Tag-Biter”). Over the last couple years, Lorelei has entrusted Nalu to me in-between visits to our home…because, we were both “boys”.
Seeing both grandkids in their own little worlds, I thought I’d shake things up. I picked up Nalu, held him high in the air and called out, “Come on, everyone…let’s have a parade!”
I proceeded to high-step into the dining room, raising Nalu into the air – my drum major prop. I didn’t get more than a passing glance from Lorelei, who was still in fairyland, yet Aydan…began to follow.
Out of the dining room and into the kitchen I marched with Aydan tentatively following behind dragging a white balloon by a long string…out of the kitchen and into the arts and crafts room we marched. And then back into the living room, which adjoins the dining room…where Lorelei still sat at the table, yet by now I had distracted her, and as we passed her table, she joined the parade behind Aydan’s balloon, holding Tinkerbell in one hand and Pocket Polly in the other…
We marched through the kitchen and then down the hall and into the bedroom, where Grammy was talking on the phone. Not wanting to disturb her, we marched back out and up the hall, through the arts and crafts room and into the kitchen when I noticed…Aydan had fallen behind.
I made a tight circle, with Lorelei following my lead and found Aydan entranced by something he’d found on the carpet. He was pointing to it and giving out a toddler grunt, which I translated to mean, “Hey You Guys---Look at this!!!!”
It was a toddler-sized rainbow that Aydan had stumbled upon and for a time, even I was stumped as to how and why it had come to find a home in the middle of today’s parade route. But looking in the direction of the window providing the sunlight, I found a pewter shaped heart hanging on a string from a shelf. In the middle of the heart hung a crystal that was sipping sunrays and transforming them into a tiny rainbow…in the hope of capturing the imagination of three children who were marching down main street inside our small home.
Aydan laid down to examine, a bit closer, the spectrum of colors and in the process, broke the stream of light - making it disappear. I picked him up and moved him a bit to the left, restoring the colorforms back to their temporary home on the carpet.
Joan had finished her phone call and joined us as I grabbed my camera to document the enchanting moment….little hands taking turns scooping up and holding a rainbow…does it get any better than that?
A passing cloud out in the real world ended the life of Aydan’s little rainbow…the little crowd dispersed and the parade had been forgotten. Soon it was time to go to Toddler Time at the library, then on to a picnic lunch at Riverfront Park, and then back home for naps. And all that had happened that morning was left in the wake of my daily planner…till the next morning, when I found myself in the company of a quiet mind up to camp and the treasure chest we’d found at the base of Aydan’s Rainbow joined me…and a yellow pad of paper.
And so it seems to go, day in and day out—as we march in step to the cadence of our chosen drill sergeant…until a magical moment awakens us from our sleep. And when one awakens, everyone else in close proximity gets the same wake-up call and together we revel in the absence of time – Providence, the magical grain of sand suspended midway between the upper and lower chambers of the esoteric hourglass.
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