Please bear with me here–there is a point to my dithering–
I remember when I discovered that squashed red ants smelled like raisins. I don’t recall the where-to-fore, I just promptly plonked my young backside on the sun-warmed sidewalk, my bare big toe doing the deed and my nose sniffing with satisfied flared nostrils. True story.
I loved playing at my grandparents house. I was nosey, plain and simple. My explorations took me one day behind their big clunker of a TV with its 50 million wires, mesmerized by how they snaked in and out, over and under. Oh, but what was this, a loose cord, not plugged in anywhere? And here, an outlet with nothing plugged into it?
Well this intrepid little Sherlockette put two and two together, plugging one into the other. Voila! Zap! Youch! One fleeting, enlightening moment later, I emerged nursing a powdered black thumb and a science lesson, free of charge. Fact.
Summer is my season. Always has been. Born at its peak. Great memories. I had this plastic rectangular tub, see, and after a sweet, summer rain, I noticed how many, many earthworms arose to bless the puddles. And me–I soon had my tub 2 inches deep with the squirming things and even had the good grace unusual in one of such tender age, to add some sopping soil to their exquisite habitat. I had no leashes, but trustingly allowed 2 or 3 of them out at a time on the ground for a walk, intrigued by their legless manoeuvres, making sure they each got their turns. Amazing.
And somehow, after all these years, (the number of which is being withheld from any of you nosey people,) I have retained this fascination of the seemingly simple things in life. The way the hoarfrost glitters in all its crystalline glory. How a fern frond unfurls as it matures, from a tightly sprung coil to fingers reaching out of the shade to grasp the slip of light coming through the trees. How a spider knows just the right moves of his dance, even the first time out. The way mercury spilled on a table breaks up, then pools together, over and over when you nudge it. How several minerals can be huddled up in the same piece of rock. The northern lights, an enthralling display of colours like painting in motion, constantly being renewed. The shapes and hues in a candle flame.
This wonder in the things around us, this curiosity, never losing the ability to see as a child sees, is a wondrous tool, for all children’s writers. Two words–“What If”– are a writer’s creed. If we no longer care about the little things we would cease to write. We are constantly asking questions, and it’s where the answers take us that results in stories. And the more we ask, seek, look, the better the story. Our passion will flow through the pen and transfer to the reader. And then we’ll both be on the ground squishing red ants, marching earthworms, all worries and cares forgotten.
Well, the surviving ants might be worrying.
Ink & Attic 