Happy Thoughts

Madeline, you are making it so easy to keep updated on your activities and goings-on, I love it! Today was my first day back in the saddle wif my summer job; it’s been a long and painful month. I’m much better when I’m kept busy—when my duties involve going someplace other than my parents’ house, and, once there, feeling golden and quick and buoyant.

I’ll run the wading pool at Dahl Field come July 6th, but until then I’m subbing when they need me. I’m not going to pretend it’s hard work or anything (nothing like I imagine canvassing or salmon fishing to be), but then, I’m good at it, and it is tremendously rewarding. It must be that I control the source of fun for all these children, and I’m more than happy to turn the water on. I don’t have to decide whether they’ve been good or not, I don’t have to teach them anything, and I almost never have to raise my voice with them. Yet they have a congenital sense of respect for me as an “adult” who is not their parent—they are awed and impressed as I test for chlorine, and they listen to me when I ask them not to stand on the grate as the pool is draining. These are qualities y’all could learn from…

They’re not scared of me either. Two boys will go on a mad chase through the water, part of the Jean-Claude Van Damme movie playing out in their heads, and splash my book as they pass. I don’t really care though. I don’t bring books whose perfection I’m unwilling to sacrifice.

I remember the young girl who saw me pick a flower petal out of the water, and proceeded to scour the rest of the pool for more petals. “These are for you,” she said to me as she finished. I remember the second-grade boy who confided in me his dream to create a more sustainable line of cruise ships. I asked about his motivation: “It must be my love for the sea.”