I want to feel myself part of things, of the great drift and swirl: not cut off, missing things, like being sent to bed early as a child, the blinds being drawn while the sun and cheerful voices came through the chink from the garden. ~Sylvia Plath
This weekend my daughter and I went exploring. Not in the woods as we normally would, but dumpster diving in a car repair shop, my mom’s wood shop, and my clock repair man’s trash bin.
We were on a mission, looking for things that are one thing, but look like another—funky car parts that look like elkhorn coral, cogs that look like eyes, injector pieces that look like the mouth of a butterfly fish. She’s working on an art piece for a competition where “weird wins.”
And going out to play and discover felt oh so good.
Since April, my family’s been a little closed-in, trying to survive. To be honest, we’re still a little off-kilter, but we were also starting to suffocate inside the walls we carefully constructed to hold ourselves up.
As my girl and I deconstructed a broken clock, wondering at the intricacies its workings and laughing as it spun randomly, I smiled, a realization dawning.
While we were sick, we’d metaphorically and literally sent ourselves to bed early. But now that we were strong enough to go back to playing, we’d forgotten to go back to practicing wonder. We’d stopped discovering.
I’d forgotten something I learned long ago:
Without wonder, without continual learning, our souls start dying.[tweetthis display_mode=”button_link”]Without wonder, without continual learning, our souls start dying.[/tweetthis]
I have no idea where my girl’s art project will go, but she’s going to have fun in the process and I’m going back to discovering the world gifted to me. And I hope you join us.
This week, what’s one thing you might do to play like a child up playing after dark?
This short story is in response to the Five Minute Friday prompt: Discover. The rules are: write for 5 minutes and no editing (although I can’t stop myself a little. I am an editor after all.).