The little angel learned to break a board today at school. Apparently they were visited by a martial arts instructor. Her board was the yellow one. She demonstrated her moves from her booster seat in the back of the Corolla.
Me: "You know who knows martial arts?"
Her: "No, who?"
Me: "The girl down the street in the green house."
Her: "Do you think she has an outfit?"
Me: "Oh, I'm sure. Probably the white pants and white shirt. And a belt. Belts are an important martial arts accessory."
She smiled at me in the rearview mirror.
Her: "You know, Mommy, sometimes when you say things like that, it's like I have eyes inside of my head. I can see things."
Me: (trying not to wreck): "That's what your brain does."
Her: "Are there really eyes inside your head?"
Me: "No, it's your brain. It takes your memories and your imagination and makes pictures."
(silence)
Me: "That's what writers use to see the stories they tell."
Her: "I like seeing the pictures."
Me: "Me, too."
And I remembered the time I sat in the changing room at my dance studio, probably eight years old, and became aware of myself, not just me moving through the world but the Rita that exists within. Not the physical one, but the one like nobody else. My soul, perhaps. I don't know how long I sat in the changing room, but it was a transformative experience. As an adult, I only become aware of my soul in moments of great crisis, when time stops moving and I once again feel the wind or the rain, once again live in a moment without regard for past or future. When I see colors so bright they hurt to look at them. Art so raw my throat constricts. And, sometimes, when I write. When I see the pictures in my mind as though I had eyes there.
I like seeing them, too.
