I can’t stop watching kids. I’m at the Pearl and there are kids in strollers, kids in their parent’s arms, kids tugging on their parents from down below or walking hand in hand along the broad way. One child is lifted out of her stroller and set down on the ground, she seems stunned as if she were just born that very moment. Utterly fascinating.
What are they seeing? What are they perceiving in their nubile, relatively unprogrammed curious minds? That’s what I’m trying to imagine.
There’s probably a threshold before which they can’t even focus, everything is a blur. I’m kinda on the other side of that line myself, trying to focus. I’m also trying to unlearn what everything is so I can experience the wonder that I imagine they experience. Hey Santa Claus is real, as are elves and fairies.
I mean it’s a myth, we know that, but who’s to say they don’t see fairies? All facts start out as myth, or is it all myths start out as facts? I forget now. Kids don’t really know the difference. They feel the truth of it. They notice things. Like the tiny antenna like leaves of the fir trees that surround this courtyard. They are strewn everywhere.
Stones are interesting. Adults don’t see them or kick them aside, insignificant. Kids pick them up and examine them, then go looking for more. I saw a kid once take on the project of collecting stones and piling them under a tree near his parents as if it was his hoard, worthy of a dragon’s keep. And who’s to say it’s not?
Not me. Looked like a proper hoard to me. Ancient stones shaped and sculpted by natural forces to take on their unique and lovely forms. All stones have a personality. Kids know that. Same with leaves.
Once they figure out who’s mommy and who’s daddy I’m sure everything has a face of some sort. A proto-face maybe not a full face, a developing face. Everything is developing for kids.
Put two kids down on the grassy area next to the cafe, two siblings, and they will start chasing each other as soon as they have their stance and claimed their territory. Primal. Put a two year old down and they will head for the stairs leading up to the front door of Cured, the restaurant. They want to climb. Primal. Monkey instinct, climb up something. One year olds will climb up their parents and hang out in their branches. Oh to hang out in the branches of a deep dark forest again. Hidden in the branches, behind the leaves, looking out at the world.
Things that little kids have to learn:
Distance. Things are separated by distance. The distance varies, it even changes.
Things. There are things. Many different kinds of things. Among the collection of things, however, is not yet themselves. They don’t exist as a separate thing with a boundry and an identity. That’s coming.
Rules. Everything is not everybody’s. Some things you can touch and grab, some things you have to leave alone because they belong to somebody.
Faces. Everybody has a face but that doesn’t mean you can grab and scrunch it. Faces belong to other people.
People. Other people are their own people. There are other people, first of all. It must be a shock to discover that. Your mother and father are not the only people in the world. But being shocked is probably pretty normal for kids. They are pretty shock proof. I mean if you don’t know what to expect, nothing is a shock. Or everything is.
So it’s Christmastime. This is really for kids. Santa Claus and his elves don’t exist for adults. Baby Jesus in the manger, maybe, with wise men bringing gifts. We can believe that myth.
Or maybe it’s true. Who knows.
music :: ‘Theme for Lazarus’ from the album Nostalgia by Skinshape
kids