dirt

Dylan,

This evening I sat across the yard and watched you play in a huge wooden dirt-filled planter. You had a few small (maybe 12 oz) pots, a plastic soup container (probably from Yaya's house) and a blue shovel.

Scoop and dump, scoop and dump you went, slowly filling the large container just to dump it out, then transferring dirt from one small container to another. You were methodical, if not efficient.

Only a child or an artist can move with such purpose in the production of nothing useful.

I'm sure you spent 15 minutes in silence, fully engaged, your synapses firing away smoothly and constantly, just moving tiny bits of earth. Your plastic, battery-powered noisemakers and sundry "educational" toys -- rarely earning such devotion-- are unable to compete with a few gallons of old potting soil.

A boy, playing in the dirt and seeming right at home. It made my day.


Dad