Treasures

Those are vials of spiders at the American Museum of Natural History that two little boys thought were pretty cool. Public school kids are still out, so the children both spent the bulk of the day with friends. The Girl went with her friend and got to walk a dog (!!!), and see the circus, and I took Judd the Red Chicken and one of his friends to the Natural History Museum. We have been approximately three zillion times, and it never gets old. Ever. Like our friends that have often gone with us, and the memories we have of younger manifestations of the moppets wandering the halls, the place itself is a treasure. 

Before the play-dates got underway the kids finished up their Halloween books. We have a bin of Halloween books that come out with the decorations each year. I will refrain from expounding too heavily about how books hold memories in ways that e-books never can. Anyway, yesterday the kiddos wrote Halloween stories (hilarious), and today they finished copying them into little homemade books and adding illustrations. When we packed up the Halloween books/decorations tonight we included our two new additions. Treasures that will be appreciated more each year. 

Tonight when we were all back together, we celebrated El Dia de Los Muertos in our quiet, gringo way. I read two articles that I keep in a file and pull out every year.  I'm really happy that I just found this link -- it's pretty much the same article that I have by Victor Landa.  The second "article" is actually a chapter from Dr. Rachel Remen's book My Grandfather's Blessings.  Until five minutes ago when I tried to find a link I didn't know/remember that my wrinkled copied pages were from that book, so that title just came as a pleasant surprise. The chapter is called, "The Link" and it retells the story The Once and Future King, by T. H. White -- many will know this story because of Disney's version -- The Sword in the Stone. Dr. Remen summarizes how Merlin teaches Arthur by transforming him into many different animals so he can befriend them and learn their wisdom. Then she describes the moment when he finds the sword, and at first fails to pull it from the anvil... it is lovely: "Suddenly with a rustling of wings and a scampering of feet, with a slithering, squeaking, growling, cheeping, and baaing, the empty square fills with the spirits of all the creatures who have generously shared the wisdom of their own lives with Arthur, who have loved him... Long gone from his life, they are nonetheless with him, supporting and encouraging him... And strengthened by their love and all that he has learned from them, he reaches forward again..." 

After the readings I retold a sacred story about a cousin. Every year the children are older and ask more questions and posit more ideas. We then talked about my Grandpa, their great-grandfather who died a year and a half ago. I am listening to him crack himself up right now as I type this. About fifteen years ago I gave my grandparents some blank tapes and a list of stories that I had always heard, and wanted to always have. After my Grandpa died I found the tapes and went downtown on a rainy day to a little hole in the wall place that transfers tapes onto CDs. These CDs are treasures beyond words... or rather, treasures of words. The children have already heard them, but tonight we left their door open so they could fall asleep hearing his voice.