Childhood Treasures

Saying ‘I love you’ can seem such an over-used statement of our love for someone we are devoted to widely as we are deeply. I sometimes feel one ought to save the phrase up like a carefully wrapped childhood treasure. You know the ones. The kind we imbue with all the magical believing of a child and transform its ordinariness into something so much more than that. Much much more.

I’m not saying one ought to make the phrase obsolete from one’s lack of use. Rather, I feel like we might use it like everyday silver. Use it at special times during the day when we can appreciate it, like during that companionable cuppa. The cuppa we have at the same time each day with our loved one(s) in the mutual down time.

I remember unwrapping the tissue on a childhood treasure once, long after the sun had set on my childhood. Inside was a gun-metal grey stone that somehow seemed so much less at days end and yet, the magic of seeing was still there.

I looked at it for ages trying to tap into those childhood thoughts as to why I’d wrapped it so carefully. And then I remembered. It needed to be submerged in water. It came to life immediately. The grey bore strands of white swirling lines throughout and around it. The grey tones seemed to graduate in light to dark shades. I had found my childhood vision again.

Joy! So saying those three little words ought to help us find the treasure we’ve carefully wrapped in tenderness and memory, joy indeed. Enjoy for as long as you are able. There’s nothing quite like it!