Today, a mother shared memories of being one of those little children who dallied walking to and fro from school, dreaming up fantastic elaborate worlds of little fairies hiding under blades of grass, building cities in piles of sidewalk snow. She was punished by her teachers for being so late, and now she worries that her own child will lose that precious imagination if labeled ADHD and medicated.
I immediately remembered being a young man walking a two-year old girl who held my finger with her hand and babbled, conversing the entire walk. I remembered walking along the ocean with my godmother conversing about life in trinkets of babble. I remember myself being a young boy racing blades of grass in rivulets of drain water, feeling the excitement of white water rafting.
In that moment, I imagined myself the guardian of such fantastic worlds and the children who create them. Maybe the purpose of our mundane world is to protect and cherish the fantastic worlds created by our little ones.
