The Friendly Lion

I took a time machine back to being a kid again thanks to my six-year-old niece this past Thanksgiving. Days were spent playing micro-machines, kinex, legos and the occasional American girl doll tea party (these were short-lived). We even progressed from our free style music sessions this past summer to actually crafting our own songs with lyrics.

One such song was titled “Gobble, Gobble, Gobble,” a thrilling tale of a turkey who flys away “High above the farm” so as not to be eaten for thanksgiving dinner. Guinevere came up with all the lyrics herself, I simply handled the melody by plucking away on the ol’ fiddle. These songs were put on in front of family members and at my own request, without the use of video.

We also performed a riveting rendition of Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer in the family room. I again led on acoustics, and Guinevere starred as lead vocalist with the occasional back up mumbles from her two-year-old sister Isabella. We couldn’t hold these “concerts” without some kind of colorful backdrop, so of course, arts and crafts were another necessary component to the weekend. I was glad to guide the way on two vibrant holiday posters, one of which my drawing of Rudolph looks a little “creepy looking,” as she put it. All the creative energy that flowed from my room could have powered a small toy-making factory to say the least.

What really brought me back down to earth and feeling like a kid again was when Guinevere came up to me on our last day together, looked me in the eyes and said, “You know you’re my best friend.” I started thinking wow; I can’t remember the last time someone’s told me that outright. And then I thought, can a twenty-three-year-old and a six-year-old really be best friends? Of course they can! My own feeling, that were all just big kids at heart came rushing back to me. Even one of my friends that works as a secretary at the art center told me the other day, “I just never choose to grow up.” And I ask, do any of us ever really grow up, fully? I don’t think so.

The weekend wasn’t quite over yet. The rents thought it would be a good idea to take the kids for a ride to Christmas village, this insanely rigged mini-town that must take a hundred thousand light bulbs to light up. It’s nestled just behind a lake close to Reading, and when you pull up over a telling hill you think you just hit the Christmas village from Nightmare Before Christmas.

Guinevere suggested we ride to together, and so we did in the backseat of mom-mom and pop-pops car. She fell asleep on the way up and when she awoke I asked her if she dreamt about anything. She said she had been petting a lion, and no one else was around and the lion was letting her pet it. I suggested maybe she become a zoologist when she grows up. But nope, she said she wanted to be a “volcanologist” (I didn’t even know that profession existed). Then she said she wanted to be a teacher, and then she told me she wants to be something different every day. I told her I thought that was awesome.

We left finding a profession for later and pulled up to this real life Christmas village where we were first greeted by frosty, and then Rudolph. We got to walk around the town and follow model trains, Cardboard cut outs of Winnie the Pooh and Charlie Brown characters, and even got to see Santa; no pictures though, that was an extra eight dollars.

All of this culminated into a ride home where Guinevere asked If I had any games on my phone and I told her I didn’t, but I did have this job search app called “Glassdoor”. We began searching teaching positions, and then music instructing jobs. I was making up the descriptions of the jobs as I read them out loud and we finally found one as a music history teacher.

In this game though, I told Guinevere we couldn’t get the job without going to college first, and so we made up a class schedule for Guinevere, complete with theatre and creative writing classes. Things then got a little too real when she started asking what days she was going to class and how she could afford a meal plan.

As great uncles do I switched the subject when we got home and gave her a piece of paper and a pencil and said, “Why don’t you write a story?” And so she did. It’s called “The Lonely Giraffe”:

It’s tough to tell from the pictures alone but the moral of the story has something to do with human (or animal) connection. As Guinevere told me, the days the Giraffe was sad she was missing all her spots. The day the Giraffe got some of her spots back was the day she met the lion.

What she understood as a six year old is we all need the help and connection from others to gain a true happiness. Even if its just a few spots we gain everyday, it still adds to our overall demeanor and well being. Remember, its only real when shared.