Spackle knives, dandelions and spoons...

I was at the park the other day, it was one of those exceptionally beautiful days where the temperature and the breeze and the clarity of the air culminate into an atmosphere of contentment. It was the kind of day that makes you stop, take a deep breath, close your eyes and just... be.

So, I'm at the park enjoyong this a-typical time durring the week and I just start watching things around me. Well, more specificaly the people around me. Moms with their children, adults with puppies, teenagers laying in the grass laughing. People reading books while listening to music or just napping in the afternoon. Then my attention is grabbed by a few small children playing together, they were all probably close in age, I'm guessing sixish. You know the kids I'm talking about. Kindergarten age. The kids that are always running, jumping, swinging their arms usually all at the same time.Everything at this age is BIG, every movement. Kids at play fascinate me. Maybe it's because I had the kind of childhood that so many of us did, the kind that doesn't foster imaginative play-time. Maybe it's because I can see the socio-interaction of adults in the way that children interact with eachother when they don't think anyone is looking. Boys typically at this age are just starting to notice girls are "diiferent" and are just starting to figure out what this new information exactly means in their life. This is usually the time when boys start playing rough and pretending to blow stuff up, making lots of unusual noises instead of using their vocabulary. Girls on the other hand tend to start noticing the things around them that are "pretty", like flowers and clouds and ribbons in their hair. Girls also find it annoying, at this age, that boys don't just sit on the grass and talk instead of trying to dig or climb stuff while making uninteligable, gutteral noises. In watching these particular children there are three boys and a girl playing under a massive old gnarled tree, probably about six feet around with parts of the root system poking like veins through the soil. The shade from the tree prevents any grass from growing there so it's just dirt. This, however is perfectly fine with the boys who imediately sit down and start pushing the dirt into piles, while the girl stands on the ridge of a root looking down suspiciously at the boys.
After a few minutes of interaction with eachother I notice one of the boys. The "leader" of the group pulls from his pocket a small spackle knife. The boys, of couse, are elated each in turn wanting to hold the desired object and talking about how cool it is and what an awesome thing to happen to have in a pocket. At this point, the girl most decidedly leaves the group and plops down to hunt some clover and pick dandelions for her mother. The boys though, in a hustle of excitedand animated activity, decide that they are going to attempt to chop down the tree with the spackle knife. Cheers and affirmative grunts issue from all the boys present and this, this is what caught my attention.

How pleasing would it be to have that kind of thought process?! I mean really. Think about it! All that confidence with just enough ignorance and naivete mixed in. To be a child again. To live in a world where things like chopping down trees with spackle knives and digging to China with spoons are really possible. To have such a view of your place in the world and the faith of your mastery over every situation. To believe that you live in a world where everything is big and it's not scary.

Wow.