“Babbo, what’s meander mean?” asked CH about a word we’d just read together.
“Meander is to wander without a goal, just to go here and there and enjoy yourself,” I replied.
Some days are the best because they are unplanned and open themselves like the petals of a flower, unforced yet perfectly harmonious. On Saturday my wife had an engagement and I had the kids to myself. We played in the yard, Number Two went down for his morning nap, leaving Child Harbat and me up to our devices in the garden, nothing planned or scheduled.
“Let’s pick some flower petals for a fairy house!” she said. And we did.
The roof of our fairy house was a blanket of flowers from the garden, a riot of pink, yellow, fuschia, and white. Pine branches laced together to form walls, smooth river stones sunk in the dirt described a stepped path leading to the front door, and a bed of seed pods was topped by a pillow was made from a torn camphor leaf. I would live there.
Under the dappled sun of a late March morning she practiced writing numbers, adding piggy ears and curlicues for decoration.
We swung on the swings, laughed, talked, and I felt pure love for this little girl. And we meandered.
Writer, architect, father, husband.
One of my absolute favorite blog entries! What a fabulous Dad you are. That little girl is SO lucky!