I am eating breakfast at The Hampton Maid. It's upscale compared to most of the brunch eateries around here, and it appears to cater to the crowd that uses "summer" as a verb; I'm glad I wore my clean and ironed Hawaiian shirt. Next to me is one of those verb-using families; Mom, Dad, boy and girl. Their converstaion is end-of-summer talk: packing, school, the logistics of rentry to autumnal life. Dad looks distracted, as if all is settled and he is already back at the office; "we shouldn't have too much trouble...", the rest of that thought dieing on the vine. Mom looks harassed; she knows that "we" means her, as it has all summer, and it's wearing thin. The boy breaks in, like a baseball through a window; "...but I don't want to stop summer, I want to have FUN." His slightly older sister replies, in a voice that is equally calm and exasperated, "but it HAS to end- to make room for all the beginings and NEW fun". I am amazed, not so much at the thought (which, while pretty bright for someone her age, is hardly original), but at the firmess and faith with which she says this. For her, this isn't insight; it's axiomatic. Wow, not even hit puberty, and she understands the wheel of life, better than I do.
I have been philosophically pwned by an eleven-year-old girl.
Who was eating Fruit Loops.
Gardez la foi, young lady, gardez la foi.
Sent from my HTC PURE™, a Windows® phone from AT&T
The Inn of Infinite Sadness, or alternatively, Smudge and Hobbes' Traumatising Transcendental Transatlantic Trip. Being the adventures of two very large, unwillingly peripatetic, half-Bengal cats and their owner (of rather similar description) as they prepare to leave the North American continent in search of a new life in their (the cats, not the owner) ancestral homeland of Aneda. Sigh, what I won't do for a decent cup of tea.
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