May 25, 2024
They say that sticks and stone can break your bones, but sometimes they can break your heart too . . . in a good way. When I see a small boy wielding a stick, I get a sense that some things about being a child never seem to change, even as the world goes spinning wildly by us. Maybe they are dreaming of slaying dragons like in the spirit of St. George, maybe it is the perfect hiking stick, or maybe they are just keeping that stick handy in case there’s a mud puddle that needs poking. All I do know is that once the perfect stick is found, it is hard for any parent to coax the child to part with it.
Recently on a trip to Yosemite, I was smitten by the sight of small boys and their sticks. People from all over the world come to these rocky ledges to stop and view the beauty of sunlight on the massive granite stones. The sound of different languages converging at a place like Glacier Point is amazing to hear. It makes one feel very small, and one can’t help but feel a sense that America is such a vast wonder land. Everyone’s eyes are cast up to the heavens to watch the changing colors of the sunset play on the land below. Everyone except for the small boy who is scoping the ground below for that perfect specimen of a stick. Generally, there is a wary parent nearby with one eye in the camera view and the other assessing the sticky situation.
One mother in her beautiful lilting Indian voice coaxes her son to put down the stick. I don’t understand the language, but I understand this universal pleading. She is coaxing her son, but not totally. Part of her is admiring the stick too. Where did he find such a treasure? And, how can any mother resist the face on this child? Of all the wonders he has seen today, this is the souvenir he wants to take home. It is taller than he is. It is from the limb of some majestic pine that dropped many years ago. It was left to wear and weather to this particular shape and size just right for a boy. It is perfect! But alas, like so many treasured things, after a day in the sun, it must go its way just as the family must go their own way too. There will be new sticks for the boy, until that one day when they will lose their charm. We can’t know what day this will happen, nor would we want to know. It is better that the day passes by unannounced. That is why a stick can break my heart. I’ll save the stones for another day.
May 2024
