Yesterday evening, my wife and I were going about our business in the usual way. She was checking her various social networks and I was pacing around the kitchen trying to remember why I was in the kitchen in the first place. Our 18 month old boy, Cash, was being uncharacteristically self-contained and quietly toddling around the room. Out of the corner of my distracted eye, I noticed he was sort of traversing a pattern, from one specific place to the other.
I stopped what I was doing and discreetly turned my attention toward my son. This is when I got the rare privilege of witnessing what I’m sure is a first for him. He and his mother had gone grocery shopping earlier that day, like they have so many times before. Now, between our kitchen and living room, I was watching him pick out invisible items from an imagined shelf that apparently existed on the broadside of our refrigerator and carry them over to a little makeshift shopping cart (a little plastic stool which he’d flipped on it back so he could place things between it’s three legs). Once he’d gotten a few “items” and placed them in his “cart” he would push the thing around our house and babble to himself contentedly.
I was witnessing my son’s very first game of make-believe.
Holding back my emotions was like plugging a hole in Hoover Dam with your thumb. It sort of worked, but there were a lot of leaks and it hurt a bit. I was overcome with feelings at what I saw, because, this little game signaled the beginning of something so important: his imagination.
Cash going on an imaginary shopping trip were his first steps of a journey taken by the likes of Maurice Sendak, Stan Lee & Steve Ditko, C.S. Lewis, Ridley Scott, and a million other geniuses. People who bring us stories like “Where The Wild Things Are”, the recent Avengers film, the vast worlds of The Lord of The Rings, and the much anticipated 2012 film Prometheus . Watching my boy find his imagination makes all the sleepless nights and worry that I have experience and will experience so worth it that it’s hard to put on a blog post, or even squeeze into a multi-volume uber-novel.
All of us involved in a little one’s life get the joy of witnessing firsts, but I think “first time playing pretend” is a pretty special first. I am bursting with pride and privilege to have witnessed anyone’s first bout of make-believe, but especially so because this is my boy.
And for Cash, if he ever happens upon this posting, I’ll say this:
We may not be able to fix a kitchen sink or re-build a car’s engine, but we are the dreamers of dreams, son. That’s important. We challenge reality and ultimately change it, hopefully for the better. Don’t ever let anyone tell you to stop pretending, because imagination is the raw material by which the fabric of our humanity is woven.
RIP MCA
So Obama is speaking in Richmond tomorrow and it’s going to effect FREE COMIC DAY for our friends at Velocity Comics. Let’s try and get the Commander in Chief to show some support and stop by everyone’s favorite store. Whether you’re in Richmond or not, please copy/paste the below on your twitter (if you have one).
ATTN: #RVA. If you think @barackobama should support Free Comic Day at @velocitycomics tomorrow then RT this! #Richmond #FCBD
May The Fourth Be With You
(Source: iraffiruse, via joecontrol)
(via birdybaby)
Eating sushi in front of this makes this trip tolerable. (Taken with instagram)