holidays, magic

Christmas Sticker Miracle

A blonde curly-haired toddler refused to sit up in his bum bucket bus seat and squirmed away from his mother’s grip.

“Do you want to sit with Daddy?” she tried.

Daddy was next to me with an empty seat in between.

Mom sent the fussy little cherub over, red rover style. Dad pulled him up and he plopped down with bright aqua blue sneakers, kicking the air.

“Are those narwhals?” I asked excitedly, trying to make friends with the new mini monster to my right.

“Yes,” dad confirmed, “and they squeak, so we turned them off.”

“Like, electronically? Or with pressure?”

“Mostly when he jumps,” Dad said. It was not hard to imagine that this one jumped a lot.

Mom handed over a sheet of Christmas stickers and Squeaky Narwhal got to work peeling and sticking them to dad, the seat, the floor, himself, and me.

The first sticker he gave me was a small elf.Ā  He stuck it to my work bag and looked up at me for approval.

“Oh, thank you!” I cooed. “Did you know that’s my nickname? Good job!”

He smiled and drew his fingers down around his mouth and chin, stroking an invisible beard.

“He’s saying “Santa,” his father interpreted.

“You’re Santa?” I asked, playfully.

He plucked another circle from the page and stuck it to his nose. A picture of a tiny Santa head in a red cap.Ā  He giggled, pleased with himself.

“Smart boy!” I lavished. He played coy and giggled again. Little flirt.

I’m always amazed by how much children hear and understand, and cannot say with words, but can express in their eyes and body language, or in this case, sign language.

He proceeded to affix me with a set of snowflakes in blue, red, and green, a miniature reindeer, a candy cane, and a gingerbread man. I stuck them to the tips of my fingers and waggled them back at him.

“Hi!” he barked and we both laughed.

I peeled them off and lined them up the spine of my travel hairbrush like a Christmas Chakra,Ā the elf at the root. Dad approved of the creative re-purpose.

His parents thanked me as I gathered my bag to leave.

“Of course,” I smiled. Heyā€”it was entertain and distract, or endure the screaming call of the Squeaky Narwhal, which, once heard, could be accurately described as a duck chainsaw.Ā  I ventured that this little person, much like the narwhal, has a high-pitched biological sonar he could fire up on demand, and whether or not you turn his shoes off, he clearly doesn’t thrive in captivity, so we allow him to be his wild, sticker-covered self on the long bus ride home.

“Say bye!” mom entreated. Squeaky Narwhal stuck out his hand and waggled his fingers at me in his bum bucket and shouted “byeeee!”

It’s little bits of holiday magic like this that expand my heartspace ā™„

dreams, love, psychology, relationships

in need of some fussing and some nursing

:::

I wanna fight for my own strength
cracking through the pavement
bones of harmony
and flesh learning to see

My skeleton of stone
my heart of burning bone
my rapturous tone
my aching for home

My dance upon my tomb
my butterfly wings i’ve sewn
my aching for home

:::

ā€” Burning Bone (feat. Kyrstyn Pixton)
from On the Horizon by LYNX

 

[photo credit] Raphaƫl Goetter
[photo credit] Raphaƫl Goetter
Last nite IĀ dreamed a child was born. An angry, powerful girl child meant for battle. A child somehow prophesied and meant to act as a weapon, a tool for humanity. I did not give birth to this child, IĀ simply kept my distance and observed as all the wise men and women sought to coax her and train her. They staged miniature bouts between the child and those who thought themselves strong enough to get within striking distance. No one could and those who tried were thrown back from the child’s fiery, protective field, a red bubble, a halo of light that would build and erupt and push the intruder away as the child sounded with an ear-piercing cry.

I watched the warriors come and go and paced and thought and drew close to the child and gently removed the clutch of her handler from her tiny shoulder. I was well within range to destroy the child meant for service and greatness or murder and annihilation but IĀ gathered the child instead to my barren breast which suddenly gave milk and comfort. I looked to the handler who nodded and closed his eyes and took the child with me for a walk through a field, which led us down a dirt road whereĀ Iboarded a bus where a man sat beside me with open sea-green eyes and a gentle countenance. He put his arm about my shoulders and held us both and the child looked up at me and smiled.

Noā€”it is not a longing for children. I am instead longing to soothe that angry, sad untempered part of me who has taken some damage lately and lashes out at all the wrong people, in all the wrong dimensions, and with wildly inordinate scales of heat.

I am listening to my dream language and IĀ know what IĀ must do. It involves some self-mothering. And some fussing and some nursing. To be sure.