You Once Said Yes (then again, and again...)

A few years ago, I wrote about a remarkable show I got to experience on my Edinburgh Fringe honeymoon...a show for one person at a time, roving through the city in a bright orange backpack, waiting to be found by the next actor in a string of one-on-one experiences. The idea was, as long as you kept saying "yes" (literally, in some cases, or in a way - do you hop into that car that just pulled up with the driver shouting your name? Do you give the possibly homeless man change and agree to walk with him to a cemetery? etc), the show would keep going until its natural conclusion. But you could say "no" at any time (if the implicating factor of highly personalized experiences was too much for you, or you weren't quite sure that *this person* was part of the show or just an incidental stranger and were too nervous to follow this time, for instance) and it would end there.

I think I just had a milder version of that show today:). A "You Once Said Yes," real-life edition. Complete with toddler.

I closed a show this past Sunday, and I'm just no good at closings. I get worse and worse, in fact. They seem to hit me harder now. So I thought I would try to keep myself busy with Beautiful Things, to carry on from the beautiful thing I have to leave behind. I'll be teaching a bit in the coming months, but only a few times a week, so I have a lot of wide open days at home with my brilliant, hilarious, adorable, but VERY "TWO" two-year-old...and I am both a happier person *and* a much more vibrant and satisfied mama when I keep my soul fed. So, I thought I would go on excursions with him to lovely places, and write tiny plays set in each place. Yesterday, it was Brookside Gardens with some pals and their own wee one. Today was supposed to just be Meridian Hill Park. Both places, by the way, might've made me tear up :) (ha, both with their ponds and fountains, actually. Their own waterworks - hehe. I've got a thing for water).

I got a late start and what with the walk to the train station, two trains, the walk from that station to the park...by the time we got to Meridian Hill, the boy had just fallen asleep for his midday nap:). So I suddenly had what turned into an hour and a half to do my own thing in the shade near this little snoozing thing-I-love. I wrote, I read, I contemplated contemplation by way of Thomas Merton:). I snacked, I walked circles in the crunchy leaves. I listened to the breeze and the tiny waterfalls. I got bored, and then happy when he woke up. Every dang bit of it was gorgeous.

I expected to play some soccer with His Dudeness after feeding, watering (hehe) and changing him, but he wanted to take a tour of this new place he woke up in instead. So, okay - I grabbed his hand and let him guide me away from the stroller. He found the waterfalls (I did not say "Yes" to his asking to get naked so he could swim in them, I must confess. Also, he has never swum naked, so I'm not sure why he keeps asking as if that's, like, what you do when you swim....), he found some ducks that we approached and said hi to. He stopped and we just listened to rushing water for a while. Then he started asking about animals, and I realized we were probably walkable to the zoo...

So we packed up and ventured the 1.7 miles through cool neighborhoods to the zoo! His only request was tigers, so the Great Cats section was the final destination. But on the way, whatever we saw, he said hi to it and then put on a voice for it and made it say hi back and describe what it was doing:). The two little horses, for example: "Hi, Charlie. I'm with my daddy. I'm runnin' with my daddy." The elephant: "Hi, Charlie. I'm eating by the tire. I'm eatin' this grass with my trunk - it's a big nose. I eat with my nose." In other words, he makes for a highly amusing zoological date:).

But it gets better!!

We rounded a corner to find ourselves in this sea lion cove - sea lions in a pen on one side, a little area with spontaneous fountains and water emissions for kiddos on the other. I didn't have a swim diaper or a towel. And on other days, I would have shied away from letting the boy run through the water, because I'd be afraid of doing it "wrong" somehow in front of other parents (that is a real and stupid fear, folks), or I'd think it'd be too much hassle to dry him off after. But...that's all silly. All those reasons to say "no" suddenly struck me as really really silly. And we were saying Yes today! So I stripped the delighted little kook down to his diaper, slathered some sunscreen on that stunningly  pale trunk, and told him to have at it. And by god, we outstayed every other kid there:). By a mile! He was SO HAPPY, and *I* was so happy watching him. I grinned like an idiot. And THEN...the sea lions next door came up reaaaalllly close to the fence - so they were maybe 15 feet from the cove of squealing toddlers - and they started barking ridiculously!! And my boy? My boy does not miss an experience if he can help it. He ran his little wet self over to them and BARKED BACK. Then he dashed back into the water. And this sea lion-to-tot communication happened a couple more times before we left the Surprise Cove of Happiness.

When we finally made it to the Great Cats, there was no tiger to be seen.
It was seriously the ONLY animal he'd been asking for (he had a whole list last time, including a dragon...WHICH THERE WAS!!;). I couldn't believe he didn't start crying. He did keep sweetly asking, though, as if surely he must've misheard me. He even tried to create his animal-to-Charlie dialogue like with all the other animals, in the hope that his imagined exchange could conjure a real one.
We pushed on to the lions.
We came back around to the tigers.
Still no dice.
There was the exit. I may have even started to go toward it when I said, "You know, let's just try again..." 'cause we had time. That was a big thing about today...we had the TIME to say Yes, for one! So I strolled him over to the pen that had been sadly empty on our first go-round...

AND THERE IT WAS. He, she, I don't know, but walking away from us around the bend. I ripped the kiddo out of his stroller saying "Hurry, hurry!" (after that, he approached every animal with a "hurry, hurry!"). I held him around the belly - froggy legs all dangling down my own - and speed-waddled along the fencing...and the tiger stopped. And did the coolest possible thing it could have done for my boy. IT. WENT. SWIMMING! I had even SAID when we looked into the pen earlier, "Gosh, too bad it's not swimming. That would be cool." AND THERE IT WAS, BEAUTIFUL AND *THERE* AND PLAYING IN SOME DANG WATER. Just like my boy had just done.
Now we were BOTH grinning like idiots.

On the metro home, it was rush hour, so two stops in and we were suddenly a little mom-and-son oasis sitting in the middle of a tall forest of businessfolk. But here's what happened...a woman squatted down on the floor in front of the stroller so she could play with the boy and chat with me. We spent the whole ride talking. I told her about baby theatre, she replied by telling me about eurythmia, which she knows about because of her therapist/educator mom. Toward the end, a man started playing with the kiddo, and I ended up sharing zoo stories (no Albee intended!) with him and the woman before we got to our stop. And I wished them both a good day and they thanked us for the company.

And then I was just going to go home but the sleepy boy suddenly came to life and requested a park. So, we journeyed to our little playground and a 5-year-old boy (whom mine would thereafter call the "little boy") immediately popped up next to me and asked to play. My kiddo and I *both* had a great time with this funny, helpful kid. It was all my son could talk about on the way home - that he played with "the little boy."

And here's what's gonna sound all New Age-y but I am floating on clouds right now (after so much trepidation about possibly long, lonely days post-show...) so I do not care:). I think we got the connections that we got today - with the people on the crowded post-work train, with the little boy, heck, maybe even with the dang sea lions and the tiger! - because WE SAID YES. We were OPEN to them. We moved through the hot-as-bejeesus day with big ole neon "Open!" signs on our foreheads.

In his bath, the boy said, "I'm really brave, Mommy." A phrase he probably got from his beloved superhero books, but still. I replied, "Yes you are. We're both really brave. And we had a really good day because of it."