When I was walking with Dan to school the other day, we were talking about him cycling home on his own and I said, “Be careful, keep looking around for cars and people – Observation – that’s the most important thing!”
Dan said, “No it’s not!” I said, “Yes it is – what’s more important than observation?”
He replied, “Love!”
While staying with my family in the UK this summer, I was rather taken with this translation of the Upanishads by Shree Purohit Swami and W. B. Yeats which I found on my stepdad’s book shelf. Especially the first few lines:
That is perfect. This is perfect. Perfect comes from perfect. Take perfect from perfect, the remainder is perfect.
May peace and peace and peace be everywhere.
Sometimes I find it hard to see perfection in everything, but never hard to see in my son Dan!
When I was taking Dan to school this morning, he suddenly shouted ‘Dappled light!’ when he saw some created by the tree leaf shadows and the sun. It reminded me of one of the few poems I remember from school which I quite like –
Pied Beauty
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89)
GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.
I organised an activity to make clothes peg bats for Halloween at Dan’s English playgroup today, think I enjoyed it as much as the kids did!
I made Dan a town out of chalk (from the 100 yen shop) outside our flat, kept him busy for hours!
I made Dan some food from origami paper. The pan is from the 100 yen shop too. Dan likes bringing out this food when we eat and putting it on the table.
折り紙で團のキチンの食べ物を作りました。にんじん、大根、やき豆腐とねぎです。
I made a kitchen for Dan. We got the parts from Shimachu in Nakano. The main frames are cardboard boxes, with a real tap, shiny drawer knobs and a metal bowl for the sink. Dan calls it ‘SHIN’.
I made Dan some boxes to keep books and cars in. I got some sticky coloured paper from the 100 yen shop to decorate them.
１００円ショップのシールを使って、團のおもちゃ箱を作りました。
Still proud to remember that when I was 16 my Trojan Horse was used on the back cover of OMNIBVS 22 🙂
