It must have seemed odd to Wyatt: six grownups out in the garden watching him like hawks, pointing eagerly to first one pastel egg and then another. He got two, one for each hand. Fine. But the adults seemed to feel he should relinquish them, put them into the basket they kept shoving toward him.
They're always wanting him to put things IN other things, he has noticed -- his baby stroller, for instance, which he loves pushing around really fast: they keep wanting him to put a baby doll in it. Why is that?
He did find a rock and put it in the basket.
But there they all were, still pointing out more eggs -- as if he didn't see them! But do THEY bend down get any of them? No.
There were flowers in the garden -- so many! Yellow forsythia, clumps of daffodils, pink and purple primrose, tiny lavender blooms of a short-lived spring groundcover whose name is forgotten. Good rocks, too. There were birds and bumblebees. There were two cats. There was plenty to see out there, if one were as close to the ground as Wyatt is, besides the eggs.
But at last the basket was filled to their satisfaction. Everyone trooped inside-- and there were more eggs! Going to Mamo's house for Easter was a lot of work. These eggs were more interesting, though, because at least you could take them apart and find a grape inside.
Mamo had made a cake in the shape of a bunny. Coconut, with chocolate eyes. Then she didn't want to cut it in front of Wyatt, because she thought it would upset him -- the bunny was too lifelike, she said. Mommy said that was okay, that Wyatt doesn't have a concept of death yet. Mamo wanted to know when they get a concept of death. Mommy said a lot depends on who raises them. Mamo apologizes, like she always does, for having Mommy acolyte at funerals when she was little. Wyatt doesn't know what a funeral is. Why should he? He has no concept of death.
Life, now that's a different story. Wyatt has a concept of life, all right. Maybe it's true that we need a sense of our own mortality in order to fully grasp the beauty that surrounds us, but lacking that sense doesn't seem to dent his pleasure in all he beholds. Everything interesting and new, every day, all day. The world fresh. Bored with nothing, smitten with everything.
It does not last. And so we await the coming of s child among, to help us see it all fresh again. And we hurry him out into the sunshine, so that we may watch him see.
+
"Song and Story: A Noisy Day with Barbara Crafton and Ana Hernandez"
THIS SATURDAY, April 10, from 9-3at Church of the Holy Trinity in New York. $20 includes lunch. Reserve a place with Deacon J at molc@geraniumfarm.org
|
|