I don't know what I was thinking: Setting an alarm to wake up at 3:30 a.m. with the intention of making scones? Dragging the kids out of bed to watch two people get married an ocean away? We'd sit in front of the telly with tea and biscuits?
What a royal pain in my ...
"Silliness," I said to the dog, who was roused and curious at the sight of a human lumbering around the house, breaking the silence of the dark by turning on the TV. It would be at least another hour until the prime event would take place anyway.
"The kids would rather eat sawdust than scones," I said as I stroked the dog's head and retired the idea before I'd even collected ingredients.
It was all so last minute. It wasn't about the pomp or the circumstance, it was just about the moment.
Thirty years ago when a similar scene was playing out on network news I sat in the living room of my mother's house, watching a horse-drawn carriage carry another soon-to-be-princess through the London streets.
We didn't analyze the spectacle. We didn't ooh and ahh. We just witnessed it together - my mother, my sister and I. And the memory of that vision has stayed with me as if all happened yesterday.
Today isn't anything like that day.
Fairytale things have little place in Ittybit's real life. She rarely dresses up like a princess anymore. All that stuff has been packed away in the trunk of a younger girl's imagination and fancy.
This was just a wedding of two people she didn't know -- a pretty woman in a pretty dress and a groom she'd mistaken to be the bride's father -- and nothing more.
"Can I play Math Bingo now?"
No comments:
Post a Comment