It all started with Harold & the Purple Crayon.
My youngest and I read the story together
in front of a blazing fire and he said
he wanted to have this book in his collection
someday when he grows up and moves out.
I told him he would need his own copy
because there are some books I will always
need to have on my bookshelf
for grandkids or Nostalgia. I will always need
Narnia prominently displayed, and Winnie the Pooh,
and Harry Potter. I will always need Dr. Seuss
and Richard Scarry. We started listing out favorites,
and I told him the stories of certain books
I’d grown up with, that when I had kids, I knew
we would need, and how I searched for them,
and found they were out of print,
and paid large sums to secure them.
And that turned into the relating of certain stories
of our lives that we could hear over and over
again on nights like tonight, when we sit snuggled
in front of a fireplace, reminiscing and remembering
our fondest times. “Tell us again about the time you…”
and we all hunker down to hear all the parts
we know by heart, but want to hear anyway because
the telling and the hearing and the holding on tight
to the edge of the sheets, if it’s scary, or the sitting
on the edge of our seats, if it’s suspenseful, are a part
of us. We know how it ends, we know every line
and the punchline or the resolution, but we are
tied up in the story of it, and the cadence or the
song and meter of it. The stories that bind our world
together and give it a foundation and a soft place
to land, or a sure place to come home to. The stories
of how mom and dad met, or the day we were born,
and all the adventure around who we are
in our family, and what we mean to our loved ones.
The tapestry created by all our stories combining,
and holding hands, and making us poetry
that moves and breathes and scribbles its own
heart’s longing onto the page with Harold – little
orange crayon marks that tell the wistfulness
of one of my own children dreaming of creating
new worlds of imagination
right alongside this little toddler hero.
Photo from here