The world can wait
~ it's a brutal age, so a little staged delight can still earn it's keep - hide the chocolate now
Musings … my thoughts, daily since March 20, 2003 …
- other publications of mine, also on Substack for you to consider: Monday Morning Minute, FACILITYCalgary
The world is still loud - it’s constantly loud - still quarrelsome, still determined to break into every room through every screen.
Today, this morning, let it wait outside for a few hours.
Time to give children a bunny-themed cover story, hidden chocolate, and permission to believe discovery counts as triumph.
Parents and grandparents standing by with garbage bags at the ready, can orchestrate the mess (and clean it up) and call it logistics, party planning, and __________.
We live, here and now, inside a daily 24/365 racket.
News, pseudo-news, markets that never seem to sleep, alarms dressed as updates, and a fresh supply of reasons to be agitated before coffee has done its best work.
We all know that feeling, don’t we?
Which is why days like this matter more than sophisticated people want to admit.
Not because they solve anything.
They don’t.
But because they carve out a small protected zone for delight, the kind involving hidden chocolate, bright wrappers, suspiciously energetic children, and adults pretending they are merely supervising events rather than serving as willing accomplices to the wonder or chicks, bunnies and chocolate ...
Take any household this morning - fill it with children, grandchildren, or even child-adjacent adults. These ritual laugh fests aren’t calm, and they’re never dull.
That’s the deal, eh …
Give up order and Sunday morning routine in exchange for sticky fingers, colour, laughter, and the unmistakable look on a child’s face when discovery of a hidden foil-wrapped chocolate egg = celebration! … better yet, if it’s warm and melty-sticky.
Yes.
It’s contrived.
So what?
Most of what we label civilized life is contrived.
We set tables, light candles, sing songs, wrap gifts, and invent rituals precisely because joy doesn’t always arrive uninvited. Or without planning.
Sometimes we have to - especially now - make room for it.
On purpose.
Adults need that reminder too, perhaps more than we care to admit. Conflicts, speeches, and professional throat-clearing can resume tomorrow.
Today, let the little kids hunt.
Let grown-ups hover at the edges, their cameras and trash bags in hand, and let a little nonsense do its honest work.
In a world that keeps manufacturing widespread fears and dread, making room for a little harmless wonder isn’t denial of reality,
it’s a defence of what makes life worth the trouble, this morning anyway ...