Trust them

I know in this current age there are those who would have rushed up the stairs to help, or worse called the cops and social services, but luckily the group I was on tour with yesterday was made mostly of people my age and we just watched with joy and grinned.  I was on a tour, and as the speaker talked (and I listened) about the architecture, two children came down the staircase behind her.  A big brother of about seven and his kid sister of about three. One foot on the step below, one foot on the step she was on, he came down at her pace one stair at a time.  One had behind her, and one hand before.  Patient.  His sister, and he was going to get her down intact.  How will that effect his view of himself as he grows?  No adult even in sight to yell, 'don't do that, you'll fall'.  Because, honey, he wasn't going to fall.  No way.  He had this thanks. And it was so darn cute.

Today's Count

My yellow spring/fall jacket, a pink grey sky with a pale yellow glow, and amid the degas and snakes, frogs and fish, about thirty little small creatures in bright orange t-shirts two sizes too large for them, so focused on their observations that the sudden influx of a couple hundred students changing classes through the museum area makes no impression on them at all.

Yesterday's Count

Blue, blue, blue.  The roses, pink and bumblebee, fill the air with sweet.  Brightly coloured children scream and laugh through the sprinklers.  I jump through to wet my bare legs and remember.  A little breeze ruffles things, like single blades of grass, and carries the scent of the roses.  My favourite crabapple three is thick with bulbous young apples.  Horse feather clouds paint one piece of blue, wispy tendrils curled.

Today's count

Spring, just passing through, but continuing the decades long banishment of cabin fever.  The last winter I actually had cabin fever was 1984-85.  Snow came on October 16th, 2 feet of it, and did not leave until nearly May.  In February, going mad, we cranked the heat in the residence, played the beach boys and ran around in shorts, drinking from umbrella-ed drinks and having water fights.  It was a great relief.  But there has never been a winter since that has been as bad.  And today, spring stopped by for a visit. On my walk to the crabapple grove there were five children, building a snow person.  From my angle she looked like a wide prairie farm wife with a pioneer bonnet. Two piles of ice chunks released from the road way while it was possible to dislodge them.  An eight car train calling its way across the train bridge.  The wind, moving the branches of the pines as though they were ships in the sea.