She asks if she can swim in her fancy, expensive recital costume. At first, I balk. Ruin it just for play? No! Never!
She attaches herself to me, a quiet shadow, scanning my face. I shake her off. I am cumbered with many things, important things, productive things.
"I'll never wear it again, you know," she finally offers. "I only want to see what it feels like to dance through the air and land in water."
That gives me pause. But still, I resist. It seems…what? Dangerously frivolous. Sinfully impractical. It grates against everything inside me.
"No," I answer again.
"Then what are we keeping it for?" she asks.
Indeed. What are we keeping this dress for? For moth and rust? For creeping time's mildewed memories all neatly packaged and vacuum-packed in some forgotten closet corner?
Sometimes all we have are these little moments of unadulterated joy. Sometimes fleeting moments are our only antidote against the grim struggle of everyday life. Perhaps it is wise is to collect these moments and store them away: a repository of joy.
So, I relent.
Dance, I say.
She fairly skips away, all bubbling ideas and felicitous laughter. Her joy is infectious and it sucks me in. I lay aside my dishtowel and follow her outside, into the sunshine.
She dances for me and she is so blithely happy that I wonder why I denied her for as long as I did.
I thought I was allowing her to have joy, but the truth was that she was also giving mine back to me.
