Couch Karma

NYC afternoon NaamaYehuda

Photo: Na’ama Yehuda

 

It will be the couch for me today, after a bit more lifting, hopping, sliding, climbing, carrying, skipping, and bending, than my sort-of-hanging-in-there spine is happy with.

Not that I regret any of the evasive maneuvers to ‘prevent’ a giggling toddler from stepping on my shadow … Not that I regret going down the slide (well, a little … going down wasn’t the issue, getting back up was … I swear they put these toddler-level things lower and lower to the ground … ;)). Not that I regret counting ducks and spotting turtles, tracking helicopters in the sky, crouching to fix sandals and greet puppies, or examining mini-melted-puddles on park-paths of what might’ve been a dropped ice-cream (the alternative is gnarlier…). I don’t even regret riding hippos “to Israel and also to the Zoo” (yep, New York’s got a whole bloat of tolerant Hippos in the Safari Playground — and no offense to the hippopotami for the term — I don’t make English, I just use is …).

T’was all of it a lot of fun, it was. Delightful as every time spent with this knee-high to a grasshopper of a peanut is. Love that gal to the moon and Mars and back (whether we get there on or off the back of a hippo calf). But this does not mean there’s no piper to pay.

So, I’m paying the piper today. (Hopefully only today …)

And it’ll be slow transitions on and off the couch and bed and chair. And some Ibuprofen, and Biofreeze and Arnica salve, and the duck-wobble molasses-like moving that is the package deal in a body a bit too willowy and quite a bit too finicky than its inhabitant likes to accept, but perhaps should.

Or won’t.

Because.

Life’s too short and couches got to earn their keep somehow.

 

 

For Linda Hills SoCS prompt: Couch

 

A Kid’s Rock

Photo: © Randy Mazie

 

“She insists on coming,” he noted without raising his head and even though I hadn’t worded my question.

The quiet breathed and a soft breeze rustled the leaves and made shadows caress the stones.

“She stands by the gate and belts until I take her,” he added and continued to wipe his already spotless glasses. His fingers trembled, from palsy or emotion or both, I didn’t know.

“She misses her, you see,” he glanced at the goat. “Rejected by her nanny, this kid was. My Mary hand-raised her. She was this kid’s rock. Now all that’s left is this headstone.”

 

 

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

 

Caper On

Live life like a kid

On feet or hooves

On two or four:

Jump and jive

Skip and romp

Frolic, gambol, cavort, stomp.

Live like a kid:

Play fully

Dance wholly

Be jolly

Caper on.

 

For The Daily Post

Little Emily and Her Big Soul

Little Emily will melt your heart.

Not only precociously verbal, adorable, and poised, she also has empathy, kindness, unflinching generosity, and a huge soul unconstrained by her little body.

Good for her! Good for her parents for advocating caring, recognizing empathy in their child, and sensitively giving her a way to provide a kindness. Good for Uncle Matthew, too … for first giving a haircut to the doll … (love that old trunk booster, man!)

May kindness flow so that unnecessary pain no longer finds foothold and loving actions shine like this child’s heart of gold.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwQZggdZrOo

Find A Song

She never stops singing.

She sings when she’s playing. She sings in the stroller, the high-chair, the booster, on the carpet or floor. She sings in the sandbox. She sings on the swing. She sings in bed every morning. Come evenings she’s singing to sleep. She sings in the bathtub. She sings when she’s walking. She hums with food in her mouth. She’s heard singing while deep in a dream.

She sings top chart melodies. She sings the same line for a week (drives her mama nuts, but it is what it is … all she can do is introduce another song and hope it will be picked up on a whim).

She hums nursery rhymes, sings odd jumbled phrases. She repeats parts of jingles and mangles their lines. She mashes music from a hundred places and switches song to song without missing a beat. She makes up nonsense rhymes unselfconsciously. She fills in random words as she goes.

She does not quite keep time or pitch. She does not really carry a tune.

Not one would expect her to do so. She’s not quite three-years-old, after all.

So who cares if she pauses in imperfect rhythm or raises volume in an off-pitch pipsqueak dramatic flair. She’s adorable. She lives life utterly happy. She finds music flowing in every moment and in every action. She listens, she follows, she sings.

Her humming brings smiles to the lips of strangers. It melts the hearts of loved ones. It has people raise an eyebrow in amusement and meet the eyes of others in a shared moment of delight.

She’s a wonder. In her quiet content singing she’s a teacher, too:

For can you find the music that surrounds you? Do you listen? Can you hear?

It is flying on the molecules of oxygen around us. It is weaving in and out of every atom. It bonds the flow of leaves upon the water, it jingles in the rustling of branches waiting patiently for spring. It hums the breath of every living thing.

May she never lose touch with her singing. May her inner music flow unhindered and her heartbeat always rhyme with joy. And may those who wish to keep on singing, always find their song.

singing, joy, children, naamayehuda