Alice Came to Visit
I recently found a tattered copy of one of my all-time favorite books. And like an old friend finally making eye-contact - after scanning the wild sea of travelers at the airport - Alice leapt from the pages and wrapped her wild imagination around my heart! She squeezed hard and wouldn't let go!
I lingered awhile and wondered where she had been...what she had seen... what she had felt ... and why she had been away for so long?
She giggled her usual self and left her fingerprints all over Imagination's laugh-lines.
"It's been so many suns and so many moons!" she said. "And stars and oceans and clouds." Alice has always looked at Time differently.
She begged for her fairytales, all dusty and broken now.
She asked so many questions, but forgot to use any sort of reasonable punctuation, so all the ideas ran together.
I let her string them together into her own language. I let her untangle and re-tangle them. I let her design new ones.
I waited; For the minute that I could get a word in edge-wise or for the second that time would slow down long enough for me to crawl into it with her.
Then I heard it: "Have you been growing Vine?" she asked.
But before I could answer, Alice started crawling through my headspace in search of her Friend that she had helped create so many years ago. Yesterdays, some broken, some neatly bound, fell out of their places and spilled onto the cold granite airport floor. Oblivious to the torrential mass of adventurers flattening them out, they gave way to their new shapes, in the present. They absorbed the impressions that passed over them. Some held on to their new owners and simply vanished.
I panicked at the disarray and choked on the possibility that I had lost Vine altogether. But when Alice's search turned up empty, she just peeked out of the leathery pouch and radiated her usual Joy!
"Oh! She must be waiting for us in Tomorrow! Let's go find her!"
As she ran off ahead of me, she looked back and smiled the words, “It’s no use going back to yesterday, because you were a different person then.”
I lingered awhile and wondered where she had been...what she had seen... what she had felt ... and why she had been away for so long?
She giggled her usual self and left her fingerprints all over Imagination's laugh-lines.
"It's been so many suns and so many moons!" she said. "And stars and oceans and clouds." Alice has always looked at Time differently.
She begged for her fairytales, all dusty and broken now.
She asked so many questions, but forgot to use any sort of reasonable punctuation, so all the ideas ran together.
I let her string them together into her own language. I let her untangle and re-tangle them. I let her design new ones.
I waited; For the minute that I could get a word in edge-wise or for the second that time would slow down long enough for me to crawl into it with her.
Then I heard it: "Have you been growing Vine?" she asked.
But before I could answer, Alice started crawling through my headspace in search of her Friend that she had helped create so many years ago. Yesterdays, some broken, some neatly bound, fell out of their places and spilled onto the cold granite airport floor. Oblivious to the torrential mass of adventurers flattening them out, they gave way to their new shapes, in the present. They absorbed the impressions that passed over them. Some held on to their new owners and simply vanished.
I panicked at the disarray and choked on the possibility that I had lost Vine altogether. But when Alice's search turned up empty, she just peeked out of the leathery pouch and radiated her usual Joy!
"Oh! She must be waiting for us in Tomorrow! Let's go find her!"
As she ran off ahead of me, she looked back and smiled the words, “It’s no use going back to yesterday, because you were a different person then.”
I love the energy and quickness of the images that this story created in my mind! ❤ I want more!!
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