Perspectives

Just when I don’t think it’s possible to learn another thing, I find myself at the Milford Fair with our 10-year-old grandfriend. Honestly, I’d never looked at kids’ works of art, or their Lego or Barbie collections or the pine cone and PlayDoh crafts, the way a real kid does. For the very first time, I truly enjoyed looking at absolutely everything on display in The Shed. I watched as beautiful grandfriend of mine took in each and every entry as if she were in an exclusive gallery, praising this one’s style and that one’s choice of colour and this one’s unique choice of collection and that one’s crafting. By the time we had worked our way to the end of the first table, I could clearly see I’d lost my sense of fun and wonder. My perspective was skewed. I had become a jaded granny. How many times had I told people how much I’d enjoyed an event when in truth, I wasn’t even present. At least not present the way a kid is present in life.

This weekend my grandfriend showed me how kids dance through life with a real and true sense of wonder. I paid attention to what she was saying and doing and in the process I learned a valuable lesson. The funny thing is, LOML and I do have children. And, speaking only for myself, I must have been too concerned about what other people thought of my ability to raise, dress and feed my kids to enjoy the important things kids see and do and enjoy. I missed the bright, the new and the exciting things. I missed having the childish wonder in my life. A long time ago I, somehow, stopped being lighthearted, relaxed and passionate. I thought I was all of those things, but my definition of fun and being free looked pretty dull compared to the enthusiasm a 10-year-old showed as she oohed and aahed over selfportraits rendered in pencil, and almost lost her cookies when she laid eyes upon the portrait which had been painted. According to my grandfriend, “This kid should have been given a super red and golden first prize ribbon, if they’ve got one. This is the best painting I’ve ever seen in my whole life!” Up until that point I thought the best painting I’d ever seen in my whole life was hanging in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. Little did I know the best of the best was, most obviously, in The Shed at the Milford Fair.

Later on the weekend, while at the Sandbanks Fun Run, I too was treated to my grandfriend’s chatter of how I missed the best slide down the sand dunes at the Sandbanks Provincial Park. Most obviously I was too busy being an old lady, waiting for LOML, and our two sons to finish the race when I could have been on the highest sandpile in the world. According to her, the dune was higher than a building, maybe bigger than anyone’s house (but not hers because it’s not very tall) and anyone could just run up to the top and slide all the way into the water and you couldn’t do that anywhere else she’s ever been. What the H E double hockey sticks was I even thinking? I wasted my time sitting at a picnic table waiting, near the finish line, waiting for the runners to finish their race when I could have been getting sand in funny places on the highest sandpile in the world.

Before the end of the weekend, I had been treated to “an idea of how easy it would be to make the greatest present for every girl in the family”. Apparently, all “we” had to do was buy lots of cloth, get a bunch of elastic, get scissors and two sewing machines and make things. And, best of all, “We could sell whatever we didn’t use for gifts and make cash.”

I grew up too fast. I may have to climb a sand dune to get a brand new perspective on life.

theresa@wellingtontimes.ca