Dancing at Menard's

The pixie-faced preschooler was probably around three years old, a dancing, prancing bundle of energy dressed in a puffy lavender coat and pink striped hat.  Her bulky snow boots added their own flair to the boogie; their scuffs and clomps punctuated her choreography with perfunctory flair that was just right.

She didn’t know I watched from another checkout lane, feeling her dance pulse somewhere inside myself, remembering the natural celebration of muscles moving to an inner song.  This was play, not work.  And yet it was her work: her assigned vocation for this moment in time.  I’d been there once.

The adult in charge, presumably her mother, robotically swiped a plastic card.  Her expressionless eyes suggested the day’s voices had outshouted everything else, including her own almost-forgotten childlike song.  Instantaneously I imagined a memory of those kinds of voices, felt the resulting neck stiffness and jaw tension mirrored in her face.

Meanwhile the child danced on, responding to her inner drummer. She hopped and skipped authentically, unbridled by her own shyness or the weight of perceived expectations.  True to herself, she was unafraid, genuine, and real – and yet obviously utterly dependent on, and sustained by, parental care and love. “The kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”  (Matthew 19:14)

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Thought for the day:

“At my best, I can return to childlikeness.”

     - Tom Shadylac, director of the movie Ratatouille.