Monday the power was out for many in the Bay area, so because we have a generator grandchild arrived in his Halloween skeleton pajamas.  No problem.  We went to Old Mill Park where he found a tree into which we both could climb, a tree with two rooms so we could separate our tasks into cooking and a tool shop.  At one point the tree became a pirate ship, and the wind came up so we needed to “batten down the hatches”.  

I sit with it now, climbing in and out of the opening in the tree , especially when the land below became the ocean into which we each went scuba diving to commune with squid.

After I’m with my grandchild living in the land and sea of his imagination, when he leaves, I miss him, and feel slightly dizzy as though my world is set to organize and his is in response to what he sees and creates. 

I’ve been to Old Mill Park innumerable times, and never realized the possibilities in this tree.  Maybe I never even discerned it as separate from the multitude of tall trees. When I go back by myself, will this tree still open itself to possibility? Will I feel silly climbing up into a tree to view the world from its open enclosure? Will I feel silly swimming in the sea grandchild saw below it?

We were there to view the rushing creek, exuberant with the rain. And yet, for him, in those moments, the invitation was from the tree. 

Thich Nhat Hanh:

The feeling that any task is a nuisance will soon disappear if it is done in mindfulness.