Two Worlds

Each day we were on the beach in Costa Rica, we would see people passing us with smiles on their faces as they watched our tiny girl playing in the sand and surf. If I do say so myself, she did look ridiculously cute. Even the hardest of hearts would be charmed by a wee one in a bathing suit and floppy hat on the beach, right?

But on one night in particular, we realized people were out and out laughing at our girl.

And they were right to do so. She was pretty darn funny. Stella spent nearly two hours walking up and down the beach, picking up dry sand and carefully placing it in the rolling waves. Head down, arms swinging, back and forth. She was on a mission.

Who knows what task Stella was undertaking that night. I have to believe that she was summoned by some outside source or, if you like, some higher power. Did the snails and mollusks summon her? Was the Grand Sand Deity beckoning her to join the Formidable Beach Brigade? Could Stella hear miniscule sand granules calling out, “Help us! Help us! We must return to the sea.”

Whatever her mission, she embraced it with an industry and dedication only paralleled by professional athletes or surgeons. She was in another world – a sand world – and any distraction we threw her way counted only a pittance in comparison to the important work she was undertaking. Returning the sand. Returning the sand. Hallelujah and Amen. Returning the sand.

I love these moments. The ones where I catch small glimpses into what might be going on in Stella’s mind. It seems that at seventeen months, Stella inhabits dual worlds. She lives in a world – our world – where things are as they appear. It’s fascinating, sure, but it’s also very simple. Constant. Stable. But she also lives in a world – a world often ignored or negated by us big people – where things don’t have to be as they appear. It’s unlimited, astounding and enticingly creative. It’s this world that I catch Stella in a lot more these days. A world where she can hold “conversations” with her dollhouse figures and build castles with a pile of blocks. A world where she can fly on top of mountains as her Papa carries her around the house. A world where Vinnie and Cooper, our beloved cats, surpass the role of pets and serve as deep and true companions. And it’s this world that allows her to spend nearly two hours walking back and forth on a beach, picking up the sand and offering it back to the sea.

The funny thing about all this is that the people walking on the beach, laughing at Stella’s fierce determination in a seemingly futile and nonsensical task, were probably eliciting the same response in the likes of Stella and other wee ones. I mean what’s so important about surfing or beach combing or reading? There was sand to be carried, sand to be cradled, sand to be saved. All of us big people are so busy and distracted trying to make sense of what’s right in front of us that we often miss what’s just beyond the surface, that other world that fascinates, engages and feeds our little ones. Amidst all that sand and amidst Stella’s immersion in that other world, I suspect the joke was really on all of us.