Dear Reese,
This morning I had a spiritual experience over my Diet Coke and wrote a little poem about it before I started work. It made me giggle.
Someday I hope you find
That felling of cold aspartame
Running down your throat at 7:30 in the morning
There’s nothing like it
But a better version, of course
I would not wish this vice for you
But darling there are worse vices
Life is about choosing your battles
Or rather, choosing your mountains
How high are you going to climb
What are you going to carry with you
What is going to weigh down your pack
I have never found Diet Coke very heavy Tonight, you are fussy right before we’re going to turn out the light and turn around to reach for the basket of books. In the past, you have just wanted to reach for something to put in your mouth. But I catch your attention and ask, “Do you want to read Goodnight Moon?” and you smile at me. You didn’t even have the book in sight but I fish it out and you are rapt with attention and turn every page yourself, nearly in time with the word. I think we may have this book memorized.
The whole thing makes me tear up. There have been moments of understanding but this felt like the first successful exchange of only words we’ve had. No visual aids. Just your answering smile when you hear me say what you’re looking for.
Love,
Mama
The Castle in the Pond, Part 16
You have the trowel, storing the blue light from the manatee, and are ready to set off back to the pond. The chipper otter greets you excitedly once you leave the manatee’s pool.
“My family is here to meet you!” he says happily, and suddenly there are so many otters. A whole sea of them reaching out to you, climbing over The Fierce Croc and ruffling the duck’s feathers. “We’ve never seen someone like you before!” they say and are having a grand time admiring and playing in the river and, consequently, blocking any path to escape.
“Get these things off me or I’m going to start biting!” The Fierce Croc growls.
The chipper otter is unmoved. “You won’t make it back to where you’re going before dark. Stay and play with us, and then we can show you our home for the night.”
You consider it. It’s mid-afternoon and there’s a chance the journey will lead into the night. But you decide you need to keep pushing forward. The Great Bullfrog needs her power restored as soon as possible.
With this conviction, you push through the otters and start heading back down the river on The Fierce Croc’s back. You are swimming with the current, so you should be moving faster.
You should be.
“The water is slow,” The Firece Cros grumbles after a while.
You start to hear a humming from underwater. River creatures’ communication, maybe. This journey does seem like it’s taking a long time. You swear you’ve seen that particular tree on the riverbank before . . .
“Can you go in circles on a river?” you ask with worry in your voice.
The humming you noticed suddenly gets louder. It’s like singing — meow, meow, meow, meow.
Catfish!
Suddenly the three of you are surrounded by the large catfish as they mouth at your feet that were dangling off The Fierce Croc. One actually jumps out of the water and leaps for you, you barely dodge as it’s whiskers brush your cheek. It looks like it was trying to eat you!
Their singing meowmeowmeowmeow is overwhelming.
“What do we do?!” the duck cries, now flying above you. You’re not sure — you need to get out of this loop in the river. It started when you heard their distant humming.
“We need to drown them out!” you say. “Sing!”
You start singing at the top of your lungs a melody at odds with the catfish song. The duck quickly joins in. The Firece Croc grumbles that he’s not going to sing until you both shout at him and he joins with his low, powerful voice.
It’s working! The river seems to pick up speed again. You finally see a fork up ahead. You point at the left fork while singing. That’s the way you came up the river.
The catfish are still upon you, and you can sense they’re getting louder as they try to stop you. They’re slowing the Fierce Croc down so you slide down his back and kick the water with your feet, making up for the tail he lost. That little bit of help does it, and you’re propelled towards the left fork in the river. As you pass the crossroads, the insistent meowing stops.
To be continued.