It happens when you least expect it. On the subway, walking down the street, your mind engulfed in adult worries, adult thoughts, adult patterns.
Life feels grey, flat, redundant and you feel your tiredness. The tiredness is real to be sure. So tempting to give in and use it as a legitimate reason to stop, succumb, adapt to the monochrome.
And then it happens.
Like a sunburst on a cloudy day, a giggle pierces the gloom. Like that moment in the Wizard of Oz where life goes from black and white to technicolor.
There’s a munchkin nearby, and they represent so much more than the lollipop guild.
That sound, their chubby cheeks, their ability to be so present to whatever caused them to burst forth with bubbling laughter represents all that is worth living for.
Unbridled joy carried by childlike curiosity. If only this state were eternally sustainable.
This is what makes a child’s chortling so precious. It is tender. It is beautiful. However, it is not fragile.
Avoid being mistaken. To be sure; childlike joy is one of the most powerful tiny things in the world.
A child’s laugh has the ability to pull us back from the brink, precisely because it is so potent.
It’s the spiritual, emotional and physical equivalent of a zpac – it’s gonna knock out all the bad shit in one blow.
Like the adorable little picture with the velveteen rabbit beside it says, “even the smallest one can change the world”.
Frodo, Mickey Mouse, Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe is quite short in real life) Shirley Temple, my niece and nephew. Tiny can be mighty.
Learn to listen for these soundbites of euphoria. Let them transport you like Glenda the Good Witch – in a pink bubble of delight – to wherever your adult destination may be.
