It is entirely possible that you do not remember me. Because you are 5 (or 6?) and because really when you are that age (I almost said "little," sorry) I'm sure the myriad of adults that pop in and out of your life do not seem important. You're not looking for significant moments or mapping meaning in the details. You're 5 and when I met you all you wanted to do was run around in circles.
Many. Fast. Circles.
I, of course, remember you and our conversation very well. Because I am old(er). I am the kind of person things stick with and this meeting, our meeting, has kind of stuck with me.
I can close my eyes and picture you running around on the lawn behind the campus building where your mom was watching a movie. You were wearing a pair of magical goggles you'd just made at the arts and crafts table. The visor was light blue gel taped to a scrap of rainbow paper. At the centre was a bright pink bead. You looked like a superhero. Like an actual superhero, not just some guy in tights.
After you had run several interlaced circles, you stopped to outline for me the details of what it was you were doing WHILE running around in circles on the lawn. Specifically, you were running around, you explained, shooting lazers out of your hands. RAINBOW lazers, that could turn into practical things like:
A winter coat (which is why you didn't need one)
A bike
A car
Or a gun.
I think I asked if the gun was necessary because technically, if you had the ability to shoot rainbow lazers out of your hands, wouldn't that make a gun kind of obsolete?
I don't think I said OBSOLETE. I might have.
At this point you got kind of pissed off and you explained to me that the GUN shot RAINBOW BULLETS, NOT LASERS.
Bullets does not equal lasers.
Obviously.
Then you ran around some more and I watched you run while PEW PEWing rainbow bullets all over the place. I pictured them falling to the ground, distinct from the grass like shiny gum balls.
Afterwards we argued again because I suggested you should make your laser make a VACCUUM so you could clean up all the bullets.
Which.
Obviously.
Is not the kind of thing a kid wants to do with that kind of power.
Instead we walked around and you pulled the bullets back into your laser hands, through a filter of outstretched fingers.
Shaw I'm writing to let you know that yesterday I was at a party, a pretty fabulous party, and I met a woman who is actually in the process of MAKING A GUN THAT SHOOTS RAINBOW FIRE.
Which may or may not be used in some sort of combat.
Seriously.
I'm not sure what the existence of this nearly made rainbow gun says about your own manifest/imagination. If this means that possibly you are some sort of incredibly savant kid, like the kind of kid who predicts the iPhone or the electric car. I'm not sure if this means that the world is in need of more rainbows and so an unconnected/connected network of people is currently unconsciously working together to make that happen.
But it makes me incredibly happy to know that there are two people in my universe who are thinking about shooting rainbows.
So.
I just wanted to say, thanks for sharing, kid.
xoxo
mariko