The boy and I had great fun yesterday, doing mostly nothing at all. We had big plans here and big plans there but did none of them. Instead, we fooled around the house until we were tired enough to go to sleep. We bought a face painting kit and each did yellow and red flowers on the other's cheek. I attempted a killer whale for the boy. The boy loved it, but I kept my critical reservations intact. I demanded new brushes and threw a temper tantrum to ensure that my artistry would soon shine through. No, of course there was little artistry involved.
I recommend everybody paint someone else's face. It tickles and there must be some trust when painting near the eyes. While seated we shared a focus that was touching, at least for me. But when we were each finished we had done something tremendously simple, sweet, and transitory. It's like roller-blading for the mind, good practice for other ways to live. We ran around the house laughing before and afterwards, looking at ourselves in the mirror, laughing at the victory of our efforts.
Then, there arrived a monster patched together from pieces in the laboratory of Dr. Frankenstein, a fearsome a fellow as ever there was.
I recommend everybody paint someone else's face. It tickles and there must be some trust when painting near the eyes. While seated we shared a focus that was touching, at least for me. But when we were each finished we had done something tremendously simple, sweet, and transitory. It's like roller-blading for the mind, good practice for other ways to live. We ran around the house laughing before and afterwards, looking at ourselves in the mirror, laughing at the victory of our efforts.
Then, there arrived a monster patched together from pieces in the laboratory of Dr. Frankenstein, a fearsome a fellow as ever there was.
(Frankenboy)
(Apple juice is loose)
(Fatherstein)
There will be a hiking trip this morning, then there might be a trip into the city, or maybe a spaghetti dinner at school - adventure that is deserving of the energetic stylings of a five year old. The type things that keep me from sitting around the house too much and from ever doing laundry. Something has to exceed my guilt threshold before it gets any of my attention, much less my effort. Independence is fine and fantastic until there is housework. How does anybody ever do it.
So, hiking, driving, possibly spaghetti noodling, maybe more face painting, some swimming at the pool, all of it cradled in the leisure of one soft Sunday.
And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.
- Dylan Thomas
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