Our perceptions are everything. When my daughter was five years old, we sat outside late one night talking about all of the stories of the stars. As we chatted about things of the night, I told her about our fifth grade project to count and feed the local bats.
We had bat boxes instead of birdhouses on the trees in the forest next to our school. Our class went out to count how many bat boxes appeared to be settled. My daughter and I talked about how bats fly around at night and what bats eat. It all seemed to be going well as she was listening and not really interrupting.
Then she very calmly told me that she just did not believe in bats. Bats just could not be real. I spared her the story of my father getting a fruit bat stuck in his windshield wiper while driving to prove that I had indeed seen bats up close. Just as I was thinking about the poor little bat, she said, "No, I just don't believe they are real. They are just made up mommy! Everybody knows that bats aren't real because fairies are."
I felt the entire world stop. This was one of those moments. A gift to be sure. I could see her eyes wide with innocence and pure life. Bats have never really scared me, but perhaps to her, they were just unpleasant enough to not be worthy of existence. Or maybe she just had not been exposed to nearly as many bat stories as fairy stories. Either way, at this moment, it did not matter. I could have gone in the house and provided evidence. I could have used this as an educational moment.
This moment though, showed me a little window into her world. Her world was filled with a beauty I could only imagine. I cannot ever remember a time when I believed in fairies. Her view of the world really is colored with sparkly fairy dust.
There was a time when I would have put that all aside and just explained facts. This child has taught me that sometimes the facts are just not as important as the beauty of a moment. Her beautiful vision allowed her to see that her yogurt lids could help someone in pain, so she insisted on saving them and sending them in.
She is a mystery to me. She is the first to reach out to share and help others, but truly believes in miracles, joy, beauty and love in a way that I long for. She somehow is able to be compassionate toward pain and see the good at the same time.
I will enjoy her stories and now read her poems with anticipation as she still is filled with a light and joy that I am still learning to trust. Allowing her to share these moments with me uninterrupted is helping me to see more of the beauty. So we sit on the steps and chat about the wonderful fairies and how their beauty helps the world. She doesn't think they actually perform magic, she tells me, she just thinks that by visiting and smiling they make the whole world a little better. She might be on to something. The girl somehow understands that we can do the actions and send in our yogurt lids, but we need to remember to pass along our joys too.
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