One recent night, my three-year-old granddaughter asked me to draw a picture of her as a “fairy warrior.” This was immediately after she’d asked me to draw a picture of her as a queen.
She is an inquisitive child, to put it mildly, and she urged me to tell her the stories behind the drawings.
It was close to bedtime, and we were both tired. And though I extricated myself from the queen story rather quickly, the fairy warrior request was another matter entirely.
First, I wasn’t familiar with fairy warriors so it sort of threw me momentarily for a loop. But as I improvised a response to her request, I felt myself warming to the topic.
Since the fairy warrior in my story was of course a stand-in for my granddaughter, I found myself inventing various scenarios whereby she could act valiantly on behalf of her villagers. In one part, a vicious wolf showed up at the edge of the village, determined to eat some of the children.
The fairy warrior used her large staff-like wand to ward off the wolf and banish it to the wilderness where it could do no further harm. The wolf simply disappeared into a swarm of harmless bubbles.
In another part of our story, the fairy warrior gathered cherries from a cherry tree and chocolates from a chocolate tree and bananas from a banana tree to feed the hungry people of her village.
Then, best of all, she led all the younger kids, including her baby brother, on various expeditions to the mountain near to where they all lived, exploring the natural wonders and bringing back descriptions of what they’d seen to entertain everybody back home.
Thinking back on this after she went to bed, I knew there was nothing particularly original about any of the stories I’d spun, but that also they were instinctively based one way or another in my aspirations for her future.
As she matures, I hope she uses her considerable intelligence and charm for the good of others. Maybe that will involve fighting off the bad guys in some way or feeding the hungry. Or maybe it will be as a scientist or a reporter, helping others in her community better understand the world outside of their immediate surroundings.
After she went to bed, I couldn’t help spinning more scenarios for her fairy warrior self because I knew what would be coming. Sure enough, the next morning there she was, ready to go: “Tell me some more stories about me as the fairy warrior, Grandpa.”
This could be the start of something special for us as she does her job and I do mine. She is pulling an imagined future out of me and I’m helping her craft a set of shared hopes and ideals.
It’s our way of passing it on.
(I originally published this two years ago, The girl in the story is now five. She is an avid reader now but still loves to be told stories.)
HEADLINES:
Is the Media Prepared for an Extinction-Level Event? Ads are scarce, search and social traffic is dying, and readers are burned out. The future will require fundamentally rethinking the press’s relationship to its audience. (New Yorker)
Donald Trump says he would encourage Russia to attack Nato allies who pay too little (Guardian)
Special counsel's report on classified documents has echoes of the 2016 election (NPR)
How Justice Dept. special counsel policies let Hur critique Biden’s memory (WP)
The Most Galling Thing About the Supreme Court’s Trump Ballot Arguments (Slate)
Hawaii top court upholds gun laws, criticizes US Supreme Court (Reuters)
How your memory really works, and how it changes as you age (WP)
Flipping the script: Biden promises to hit Trump 'every day' over southern border (USA Today)
Einstein on the run: how the world’s greatest scientist hid from Nazis in a Norfolk hut (Guardian)
In Private Remarks to Arab Americans, Biden Aide Expresses Regrets on Gaza (NYT)
Israeli strikes kill 44 Palestinians in Rafah after Netanyahu says ground invasion is coming there (AP)
US says it will not back unplanned Rafah offensive (BBC)
Outmanned and outgunned: Ukraine’s new army chief faces big challenges in taking the fight to Russia (CNN)
Volodymyr Zelenskiy's big gamble (Reuters)
Atlantic Ocean circulation nearing ‘devastating’ tipping point, study finds (Guardian)
Parents Are Highly Involved in Their Adult Children’s Lives, and Fine With It (NYT)
Why Are People Saying Google Gemini Is ‘Full of Ghosts?’ (Gizmodo)
What to know about landmark AI regulations proposed in California (ABC)
Google’s Gemini assistant is a fantastic and frustrating glimpse of the AI future (Verge)
Clothes Come To Forefront As Major Theme In This Year’s New York Fashion Week (The Onion)
No comments:
Post a Comment