Ocean

At first I say no.

My daughter’s chin juts out defiantly. “Please mom,” she says. 

My son looks at me, hopeful. “Please, please,” he says.

“No,” I sigh. 

When I’m not looking they are in the garage, defying me. They get to the water table that I don’t want to deal with and soon are dragging it in the driveway.

Maybe I should put it back in the garage for not listening to me. But then I think that maybe I will get a break, maybe the game they so desperately want to play will give me a moment’s peace. So I fill the water table and retreat to the porch, the sounds of them playing filling the yard.

I sit and try to clear my thoughts, try to take in the early spring breeze, the soft sounds of evening, but it’s hard. My mind darts around, anxieties and worries always lurking. I think of my children and how their world is so small, so free. They are safe in our driveway but I am miles away, thinking of things I cannot change.

My children have grabbed plastic spiders that never made it inside after Halloween and old popsicle sticks from the yard. A leaf from the neighbors’ Japanese maple is an octopus and fallen cherry blossoms are lily pads.

Maybe their world isn’t so small, I think to myself as I hear them. To me they are playing with leaves and sticks in our narrow driveway but to them they are creating an ocean.