Clara's Dream

We have two four-year-old and two two-year-old granddaughters (in different families, of course).  One set of sisters (ages four and two) is preparing to move into the area with the rest of their family, where they will a inhabit a unique custom home that has been in the construction process for the past two years. 

Today, Clara (age four, the older sister) told me several of her famous stories.  At one point after watching a school of bass minnows and other assorted larger fish (bluegill) swim near the pier she said,  “I had a dream once about a fish."

“What kind of fish?” I asked.

She paused.  “A mommy fish.”

“What did this fish do?”

“She took care of her babies.”

“Her minnows?”

“Yes, her minnows.”  She stopped to think.  “And then I dreamed I WAS the mommy fish.”  This was said as an exclamation, with great emphasis.

“Really?”

“Yes.  And her name was…Cinderella.”

Fairy tales call us into fantasies founded in reality.  Somehow Cinderella, Clara’s concept of parenting, and the fish around the pier got all mixed together in Clara’s mind until she found herself in the middle of the story.  Not only that, but she became the exemplary heroine: patient, kind, hard-working Cinderella.  With fins.  And gills.

“Her name wasn’t Clara?”  I asked.

“Well, maybe Cinderella-Clara,” she replied.

“That must have been a nice dream,” I said.

“It WAS a nice dream!  But it was sort of real, too, you know…”

And so I introduce to you the fishy, the one-and-only, Cinderella-Clara: