Paper Days
When I look back on this time in our lives, when Petunia was three and a half and we were living in this particular house and Lilah was just starting to get out of puppyhood, I will remember the paper. Everywhere in our house, strewn like so many dustbunnies on the floor. A Hansel-and-Gretel trail of white papyrus, showing where our little right brain-driven preschooler had been.
Really, in a house full of toys, you'd think that Petunia would play with some of them. The play food and cookware, the pint-sized plastic tools, the magnetic paper dolls, the MegaBlocks, the miniature vanity, the dolls and stuffed animals. But it is paper that finds its way to her little hands time and again.
Basil and I both took business trips recently. I indulged my traveling mom guilt in a hand-knit backpack. Basil brought back the free pad of paper that came with his hotel room. Of course, the Marriott (or Sheraton? or Renaissance?) logo stamped paper has been what Petunia has played with. It has been completely destroyed and used up.
The paper that litters our house is mostly white - note paper, envelopes, drawing paper. But there is colored construction paper, too, and there are note cards and brochures and ticket stubs. Almost all of it has been altered. Most of it has been cut with the safety scissors that the Easter Bunny brought - turned into hard, irregular scraps with rough edges. Other pieces have been folded over themselves several times, like amateur attempts at origami. The majority have been marked in some way, with crayons or markers or stamps or paint or pen or pencil. Usually indecipherable scribbles that mimic cursive handwriting, but sometimes crude pictures.
I go crazy about the paper. When I try to clean it up, it multiplies in front of my eyes. The carpet and hardwood floors seem to push it up as an early summer crop. There is no getting rid of The Paper. Even when I think that it is all gone, there are tiny scraps that rustle at the edges of the Oriental rug, hiding in the fringe. I see paper in my dreams, swirling like one of those grab-all-the-dollars-you-can boxes inside the tacky tourist towns of my past. My hands open and close frantically, but they can never make all the paper go away.
It is hard to be too harsh on Petunia, though. Each piece of paper has its own story in her world. There are lots of 'constructions,' i.e., the things that tell her what to do. And there are notes to her parents, doctor's prescriptions, cards for her classmates and shopping lists. Paper does not fall to the ground like snow in Petunia's world. It is as if a briefcase of important personal and professional effects was cracked open like a walnut, its contents dispersed by the wind amidst the rooms of our home.
The paper is Petunia's mind at work. It is the tangible manifestation of the workings of her incredible imagination. Each scrap is a souvenir of some idea, some character, some thought, some feeling, some storyline. The little wisps of cuttings are proof of Petunia's genius.
I think about the parents whose children do not dream or think. The children who are in occupational therapy to learn to utilize their fine motor skills in working scissors or folding construction paper between their hands. The children who don't walk or explore or interact. I think how clean those homes must be, how those parents probably long for a child who just this once makes an unexpected mess, a show of progress.
When I look back on this time in our lives, I will remember how Petunia's spirit came shining through her self-directed play like a flashlight on a dark road. How, all of a sudden, it became crystal clear that this child would spend her life creating things, making the world see and feel what was happening inside her mind.
I will remember how the byproducts of creativity and inspiration appeared around our house like tiny weeds, growing quickly, showing up in unexpected places, unable to be quashed or eradicated by even the most heartfelt of adult exasperation.
Really, in a house full of toys, you'd think that Petunia would play with some of them. The play food and cookware, the pint-sized plastic tools, the magnetic paper dolls, the MegaBlocks, the miniature vanity, the dolls and stuffed animals. But it is paper that finds its way to her little hands time and again.
Basil and I both took business trips recently. I indulged my traveling mom guilt in a hand-knit backpack. Basil brought back the free pad of paper that came with his hotel room. Of course, the Marriott (or Sheraton? or Renaissance?) logo stamped paper has been what Petunia has played with. It has been completely destroyed and used up.
The paper that litters our house is mostly white - note paper, envelopes, drawing paper. But there is colored construction paper, too, and there are note cards and brochures and ticket stubs. Almost all of it has been altered. Most of it has been cut with the safety scissors that the Easter Bunny brought - turned into hard, irregular scraps with rough edges. Other pieces have been folded over themselves several times, like amateur attempts at origami. The majority have been marked in some way, with crayons or markers or stamps or paint or pen or pencil. Usually indecipherable scribbles that mimic cursive handwriting, but sometimes crude pictures.
I go crazy about the paper. When I try to clean it up, it multiplies in front of my eyes. The carpet and hardwood floors seem to push it up as an early summer crop. There is no getting rid of The Paper. Even when I think that it is all gone, there are tiny scraps that rustle at the edges of the Oriental rug, hiding in the fringe. I see paper in my dreams, swirling like one of those grab-all-the-dollars-you-can boxes inside the tacky tourist towns of my past. My hands open and close frantically, but they can never make all the paper go away.
It is hard to be too harsh on Petunia, though. Each piece of paper has its own story in her world. There are lots of 'constructions,' i.e., the things that tell her what to do. And there are notes to her parents, doctor's prescriptions, cards for her classmates and shopping lists. Paper does not fall to the ground like snow in Petunia's world. It is as if a briefcase of important personal and professional effects was cracked open like a walnut, its contents dispersed by the wind amidst the rooms of our home.
The paper is Petunia's mind at work. It is the tangible manifestation of the workings of her incredible imagination. Each scrap is a souvenir of some idea, some character, some thought, some feeling, some storyline. The little wisps of cuttings are proof of Petunia's genius.
I think about the parents whose children do not dream or think. The children who are in occupational therapy to learn to utilize their fine motor skills in working scissors or folding construction paper between their hands. The children who don't walk or explore or interact. I think how clean those homes must be, how those parents probably long for a child who just this once makes an unexpected mess, a show of progress.
When I look back on this time in our lives, I will remember how Petunia's spirit came shining through her self-directed play like a flashlight on a dark road. How, all of a sudden, it became crystal clear that this child would spend her life creating things, making the world see and feel what was happening inside her mind.
I will remember how the byproducts of creativity and inspiration appeared around our house like tiny weeds, growing quickly, showing up in unexpected places, unable to be quashed or eradicated by even the most heartfelt of adult exasperation.
posted by merseydotes @ 7:46 PM
<< Home