Complex Simplicity

Hi Aaliyah,

We had gone down to the park today as it was Sunday evening and we had no great plans of going anywhere else. We at this point of time live in the Cantonment area and everything about this place is great, greenery, close to nature, in the heart of the city, still tucked away from the craziness of a metro city.  Everything awesome, except the park.  Every swing is broken and sharp edges everywhere and no idea when they would want to repair it.  Even though its unsafe for not just you but all other children happily playing here, we make sure that you are safe.  

There is one swing which is not so broken and as you were done swinging and generally hopping around, I was just feeling so upset about the state of this play area and wondered when you would ever get to play in a nice place.  In between these thoughts I was just calling out to you, telling you not to pick things from the ground and I was also checking my emails on my phone. 

I suddenly paid attention to what you were doing and there you had collected a lot of twigs and piled them up like a Bonfire, a Bonsai one.  You jumped up and told me that you are going to light a fire there.  I was mighty thrilled at your ability to have fun out of almost nothing.  It was a huge inspiration too.  You knew how to be happy and not worry about broken swings or non-functional merry go rounds.  I took pics and BBMed it to your dad, for him to see.  There is so much to learn frm you Aaliyah and I hope you always remember that its so simple to be happy.

After sometime I proudly walked you out of the park and as we reached the so-called jogging track, you decided to play a little bit more and made a small mountain of sand and stuck a twig on top of it and said it was a birthday cake.  I was thrilled again.  You even told me that its my birthday.  You then asked me, how old I was and I looked around to see if anyone heard it and said in a very gentle voice that I was 33 years old.  You started to clap that many times and it really seemed longer than I thought.  Then you jumped and shouted in happiness and said wow mamma you are 33 years old and just then some people had to be walking by.

My little one, your simplicity is too much for me to handle :) so just remember to forget how old your mom is.  I will always be 23 years and a million months old :).