Littlest's life lessons

Seven year olds ask the best questions.

Littlest had an appointment in the scoliosis clinic this morning and in the car on the way there, she asked, "Why is my back crooked? What happens if it gets more crooked? (pitch beginning to rise ...) Will I need an operation? (pitch even higher ...) Will I need to be put to sleep? (pitch so high now that she sounds like a cat that has just stepped on a hot coal ...) Will it mean needles?"

Seven year olds also race toward a conclusion, unnervingly always managing to find the one they like the least, so with her almost hysterical in the back of the car, I had to retreat rapidly from the thought of needles, and try to explain the different degrees of crookedness, with the reassurance that hers is such a minimal crookedness that probably none of her friends have noticed and it is unlikely to involve any operations ... or needles. Certainly not any time soon.

Then in clinic, while she coloured at the drawing table, a little girl with an extreme crookedness sat down next to her and I could see Littlest thinking that's exactly what mum meant when she said my back wasn't very crooked. She squeezed her rabbit comforter and got on with colouring.

On the way home, Littlest confessed that she had found it hard not to look at the crooked little girl. "It's rude to stare," she said. "But when I was ... staring at her, I was thinking how lucky I am really."

The best questions, and sometimes the best lessons too.

Comments

Colour, Delacroix, flochetage and why don't we all have a go at inventing words

Yes - it is a real word. Flochetage. Well, a real-ish word. One invented by the painter Delacroix, when he found the dictionary cupboard bare and required a word to describe his technique of layering different coloured paints, using lightly pulled brush strokes to create texture and pattern and thereby enhance his base-layer colours (... lost? - stick around, read on and all will become clear. Or perhaps muddier ...). Flochetage implies both stringiness and threadiness. Apparently. And it sounds good - in a filling-the-mouth-with-sound sort of a way. Try it ... flochetaaaage. Not that I speak French. So I am probably mis-pronouncing it. Nor am I an artist. So what do I know about painting techniques - except that I think this one works. What I do like is the concept - you invent a new technique in whatever it is you do, hunt around for the vocabulary to describe it, find the dictionary is lacking, so make up a word of your own and announce to the world what it means. Delacroix isn...

My beloved boy, how lucky I have been

It's an odd thing that when we are waiting for someone to die ... and I say someone here even though the one in question was a dog - but to us he had character and a place forever in our hearts and was more of a familiar someone than some of the people in our lives. So, I'll start again - it's an odd thing that when we are waiting for someone to die, our senses go into overdrive. We notice things that normally would be part of the background of our every day. We breathe more - or rather, we don't but what we do is notice our breathing more, as we watch his. We pause. We think. We listen to ourselves and our inner voices speak. Memories flood our dreams ... though sleep is fitful. Why am I telling you this? ... ... we lost this beautiful boy today And in the hours before he went, I saw perfect spheres of dew on blades of grass - little orbs holding micro-images of our world; a bumble bee drunk on nectar, yellow-dusted with pollen, resting in a crocus; ten - yes, ten! ...

Walking, wondering and not walking at all

We all walk. I walk every day. I also lie. I don't walk every day, as in I don't take the dogs for a walk every day. Poor boys, in this season of tax returns and desperate seeking of extra work and working to pay the tax bill, they are the losers. Four-legged-friend was looking distinctly skinny in his hind legs, when I brushed his coat while he wolfed down his supper this evening (he tries to eat the brush if I take it near him at any other time, so meal times have become grooming times). Oddly, I lose out on the walking too, but this fails to have the same effect on my 'skinniness'... Anyway, we all walk. We walked on Christmas day - Littlest and I walked at the weekend - Slowly. Time to appreciate the trees. Time to encourage the smelly boys into the freezing water. Time for the sun to go down. Time to walk very, very slowly - Littlest's finger phone was engaged throughout in deep discussion with the zoo warden - da...

Walking The Dog

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