Magic
“At our base level as human beings…it is all we have”
Razi’s playing pretend with all kinds of household items… including Luna’s pants.
Luna — Razi can I have my pants?
Razi — No, please!
Me — Honey he’s using them as a prop
Luna — But I’m cold!
She grabs them back.
Me — Babygirl you’re jacking up his set
Razi sighed, shook his head, walked away and came right back.
Razi — Mama help me with my art
My soul just exploded with pride. His “Art”, he calls it…his art.
There’s something about a child being totally committed to an imagination project that just makes my heart sing. I think its linked to their ability to believe.
Because Believing is Magic.
Believing is knowing that everything we see, was once imagined. Someone saw it way before it was here and set it into motion.
My first year of Theatre school in the acting program was all Improv.
And it was a nightmare.
I’d get so nervous thinking about my “who, what and where” that I wasn’t able to let go. And an improv actor MUST let go. Their heart must say “Yes, I believe” and then go with the chosen set of circumstances.
You have to see the kitchen table, see the sink, see the other people, see the window and look through it….even though you are looking at a bare stage.
It is all TOTAL BELIEF.
But watching children play is the best. They willingly, blindly, whole heartedly believe they are making cupcakes under the playground slide.
And they scoop flavors of ice cream you didn’t know existed and they place them in imaginary cones, take your imaginary money and serve the next ten customers imaginary food without blinking.
Because they BELIEVE. They possess that magic inside them that allows them to see the possibilities of the world.
That is magic.
But then isn’t it kinda magic how children get here?
I have magazines older than my 11-year-old daughter and somehow this child that’s only graced this earth for 11 years has a social life with dreams, ambitions and a whole set of DNA that exists entirely outside of me.
I carried her, had her and then she was a child of the world.
Kahlil Gibran has that quote about children “They come from you but not through you, and though they are with you yet, they belong not to you”.
We like to believe our children get everything from us, but really it is the life force. The near violent surge we all have that propels us to travel down the birth canal, screaming bloody murder into the world, JUST at the right time.
Just when every woman feels like she’s going to pop, she uh…. does and if it’s not a cesarean birth, children come out the same door they went in and remind us we are walking life forces, part of the wheels that keep the world turning.
I help my children build their little sets for afternoon plays. I help them choose paint colors for their collages. And for one summer, the little one, Razi, was obsessed with making art out of blue painter’s tape.
It didn’t matter if I understood. He saw something and made it happen.
My goal is arm him with so many things —love, education, self-defense, social skills and cleanliness.
But most of all I must foster his imagination.
At our base level as human beings…it is all we have.
Imagination is free.
Imagination is fun.
But most all all…
Imagination…that thing that morphs from an idea…into a plan…into the real thing….
THAT is what we are here for. That is what we are made of. The tiny light we follow through the birth canal into the bright scary world.
That surge to be here… even though no child knows what “here” will be
Yet they come
That is our magic
#KidMouthRunning
#YesIAmThatMom
