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Jewish World Review July 23, 2003 / 23 Tamuz 5763
Dayle A. Shockley
Sometimes we need to see world through other eyeshttp://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | One sweltering afternoon, my car's transmission went out, leaving me stranded in a small town between Houston and Dallas. Luckily, I had managed to sputter into the parking lot of a barbecue joint, where, after making a phone call and ordering a large lemonade, I clopped up a hill to a picnic table and sat down to sulk. I had at least two hours to kill, and I could think of a hundred things I would rather be doing than twiddling my thumbs in the middle of nowhere. G0d, I said with a stirring sigh, why did this have to happen today? I was headed to my sister's, where the two of us were driving to a lakeside vacation spot - the first time in years we had been able to go on vacation without husbands or kids. The delay wouldn't ruin our plans, but it did nothing for my mood. As I brooded, a white-haired couple appeared hand in hand with a 3-year-old who was doing serious damage to an ice cream cone. Just what I needed - a pesky kid to annoy me. With a friendly nod, they settled in at the picnic table across the way. "Look at that big ant, Grandpa," the youngster said, his small voice full of wonder. He was hunched over the table and inspecting his latest find while a white trail of ice cream trickled down his tiny fingers. "You are about to lose it, boy," Grandpa said, reaching for his sticky hand. But the lad was quicker to the draw. Making loud slurping noises, he attacked the cone, then got back to business. "Did you know ants have 15 legs, Grandpa?" the lad said authoritatively. "Fifteen? You sure about that?" He winked at Grandma. "If I could fly, I would fly up to the top of that big old tree." The boy now was pointing to the tip of the oak towering above my head. Grandma glanced up. "And what on earth would you do in the top of that big old tree?" she asked, her eyes clearly adoring the boy. He knew immediately. "Just sit," he said. "Or sing. Or - " he shrugged his little shoulders, " - something else." The trio fell silent as the sun dipped behind a band of Texas pines. I stood up and stretched, studying everything in sight. My weary car. The roof of the barbecue stand. The dirt beneath my feet. And especially at the boy with the ice cream cone who, for unknown reasons, now was twirling around like a ballerina while Grandpa two-stepped around him, guarding the endangered cone. Staggering to a stop, the lad pitched backward and landed hard on the ground, somehow managing to keep a grip on the remnants of the cone. Rallying around him, Grandpa helped him to his feet and brushed off his backside. "Come on, hot rod," he said. "Let's go see if your mama has arrived." As they headed down the slope, I stretched out on the bench, gazed at the lofty tree above me and thought about the little boy who, if he could fly, would be perched at its peak - just sitting or singing or something. Suddenly, my thoughts tumbled over each other like waves breaking on the beach. The lad saw wonders and possibilities right here in what appeared to be a most improbable place. And I had sat just a few feet away yet had seen only calamities. He saw the world as an endless adventure just waiting to be unfolded and consumed. While I, at some point in time, had stopped looking. A breeze ruffled the leaves of the oak tree. I still could picture the boy spinning in circles, his grandfather dancing around him. And all of a sudden, I started to laugh. The sound of it, pure and sweet, burst into the pink sky and settled around me like a summer rain. And even though my car's transmission hadn't revived itself, a weight seemed to lift from my shoulders. I had a new perspective on things. When I asked G0d why, he answered by sending an exuberant lad my way, to talk of ants, to dream of flying, to dance in the dust with a melting ice cream cone - to open my eyes to the splendid treasures of an ordinary day.
I could think of no better way to start a vacation.
JWR contributing columnist Dayle Allen Shockley is a Texas-based author. To comment on this column, please click here.
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