One warm, sunny summer’s day, he hunkered down beside me as I sat gazing into the pond.
“What you watching?” he asked.
I paused for thought. What was I watching?
“Just watching….” I replied.
We both knelt down and gazed into the water through a child’s eyes.
“What can you see?”
“Nothing very spectacular,” I replied. “Only lily leaves unfurling….pond skaters pouncing…. damsel flies flying…frogs waiting for their lunch…snails eating pathways through the algae….newts stalking tadpoles…..water splashing……..”
“Oh! Nothing special!” He arched his eyebrows as he looked up at me.
I laughed.
“O.K. Everything Special,” I said.
We were quiet for a long time just watching Everything Special. I could feel the sun warm on my back and the breeze tickling the skin on my arms. The world seemed still and timeless. In the pond Everything Special carried on being Everything Special.
After a while Justme said, “Shouldn’t you be cleaning the house…or…baking a cake…or…doing the ironing…or…going out shopping…or …going to work…or…?”
“Yes,” I interrupted him. “And a million other things.”
“Oh.”
That has stopped him, I thought, but as usual I was wrong. He was unstoppable.
“Then why are you sitting here?”
“Because today I am watching Everything Special for a while.”
He laughed with gleeful delight.
“Later on you will wish you had done all those jobs.”
“No I won’t! Later on I will do all the jobs, but right now I am watching Everything Special.”
We both laughed and carried on watching. I never saw him go.
Late in the evening I found him kneeling on a chair looking out of the bedroom window.
“Hello,” he said as I knelt beside him. “Did you get all your jobs done?”
“Yes. They are all done. I called them Everything Special and they turned into fun. The cake was scrummy and the ironing smelt of sunshine. The dust danced in the sunbeams as I cleaned the house and people smiled at me in the shops. Even at work everyone seemed to be happy and smiling. I have had a lovely day!”
“What about tomorrow?” he asked.
“Everything Special,” I said.
“Everything Special,” he replied.
