Her smile was as delightful as the flame that danced on the candletop beside her.
That little girl stood there with her two hands cupped together, looking at me with a glint in her eye.
"Here is something for you to share." I dropped the silky bag filled with chocolate Gelt into her open hands. She gave me a hug and hopped over to the table. Undoing the string, she upended the bag's contents and spread out the little pile of foil-wrapped coins with her happy fingers. Some she flipped over, crinkled her forehead and stared at for a bit. Others she nudged to the side. After some deep decision making activity, my godchild chose one large gold coin and gave me the look, you know the one. The look that a child gives an adult at a moment such as this.
She handed the coin to me and said, "this one's for you!"
"Sit here next to me. Let's eat it together."
Happy Festival of Lights!
11 comments:
I have a godchild, a strange encumbrance for an atheist. I fear I haven't seen her for several years but then I doubt she would welcome my attempts to look after her spiritual welfare. Needless to say, the role was not assumed voluntarily and involved some sort of an agreement, perhaps with the Almighty. A Faustian pact. I feel ashamed of myself when I read about your much healthier relationship, although the details, involving false gold, appear to suggest some kind of allegory. Memo to self: You're still not house-trained, shouldn't be let out on your own.
Well BB, we all make our Faustian pacts in life. But in the end, I have to believe in the beauty of the human soul and in education. The coins have always fascinated me, appearing as they do both at Hanukkah and in one's left shoe on St. Nicholaus Day. When I was little, my Mama would give me a sack of chocolate coins mixed with real coins and would tell me to share them. It was her way of instilling a sense of charity in her child. Here's what happened to one such coin: http://5fingerplatz.blogspot.com/2008/12/sinti-oder-roma-ich-wei-nicht.html
add chocolate gold coins to the list of what creates color & sense of wonder... in children's lives
happy weekending!
Beth
and to you, Beth! There's something about coins that captures a child's attention. Perhaps the shininess. I spent an hour with a 14-month old girl this afternoon, and she was fascinated with my silver ring.
The beauty of the human soul; perhaps I'd have to reduce that to inherent human goodness. For what it's worth I read proof of that in you, but have far greater difficulty finding traces of it in myself (and this is not an invitation for you to deny this). Left with only the tangibles of life, and thankful at being able to recognise them, the only logical aim is to look for their improvement. A better writer, a clearer thinker, etc. Sorry about all this. I've been blundering a good deal recently, with most of my mind elsewhere; a kind of loneliness but one I chose and one, from time to time, I relish. Apologies for trampling over your gold chocolate story; the odd thing is I've taken it in, digested it and it may emerge in some other form. It's happening all the time with fragments of experience re-appearing, unbidden, sometimes after fifty years. Neither good nor bad, just things. Cheers.
BB ... I should have been more precise in my wording, 'bits' of beauty would have been closer to what I meant. Sparks of goodness (for I believe we also have sparks of the ugly stuff in us). I would never deny what you feel to be true after having lived in your own skin for over seven decades now. I respect you too much to do that. If you read any traces of "inherent human goodness" in what I have written here this past year, it is due to the largely loving (if imperfect) people who raised me. They taught me well and I am thankful at being able to recognise at least some of the things they tried to teach me.
Most of us need proof that we're not dead not (no matter how many decades we have under our belt and many aren't as fearful of death and dying as they are of life and living). For me, that proof is the creative spark in us (dare I say in our souls). And here is where 'education' (not only in the narrower sense of school) comes into the picture for me. Perhaps (self)cultivation would be a more apt term. For instance, I may not be a professional brewster, but it is more than a 'hobby' to me ... I am in an active state of creation when I engage in brewing. It proves to me that I'm not dead yet, especially when I am able to then share my creation with friends and family. I feel all beautiful inside and I have the wish to further improve, to become a better brewster. The creative element in life is the sole reason I am an agnostic instead of an atheist. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, the Hebrew Bible begins. And it was all "good" is repeated each time something else is let be. God smelled death, so creation became necessary. That is what I think. But as we all know, there is good and evil in creation. When humans create, we create beauty, but we also build atomic bombs; and gas ovens can be utilized to provide nourishment or to annihilate millions.
It's a lot for a thinking, feeling being to ponder. And that's why I withdraw into a state of melancholy ("a kind of loneliness" as you describe it, BB) from time to time. I live in a place where folks seem to want to be happy all the time; they are more likely to pop a pill to stave off bouts of melancholy (and I'm not referring to a diagnosis of a mood disorder here) instead of relishing the, if you ask me, natural condition from time to time. Even the God of the Bible went through bouts of destruction and melancholy from time to time. Don't get me wrong, I'm still not running to church or to the synagogue.
Oh, BB! I wish we could sit and talk face-to-face over an ale. It's not so easy to fit these thoughts into a comment box.
Too much here for the time I have available. Will return. As to face-to-face talk, I subscribe to Nabokov self-definition: I think like a genius, I write with talent, I talk like a baby. Since you cannot plug directly into my noggin, the written me is the best I have to offer.
My reply came to 1096 words so I sent it by two muscular carrier pigeons.
The carrier pigeons have delivered your words, BB! Hope to have them winging their way back to you before you put on your sleeping cap tonight...
Treasure.... and not just the gold.
Hhnb! You're another person I'd love to sit and talk to over a pint of ale or a glass of wine!
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