This week, something went wrong with the Mulan DVD when my foster granddaughter (she will be five in a couple of months) and I were attempting to watch it. When I pressed play, nothing. I tried various buttons, to unplug the TV, to take the DVD out and put it back in. I refrained from throwing it across the room. Finally, my granddaughter suggested putting in another video, and it worked. I could have kissed her feet. How tolerant she is about my ineptitude, how forgiving. We both like Mulan a lot. Her favorite part is when the matchmaking lady tries to gussie up Mulan, and I like the scene where she figures out how to bury the invaders in snow. We have watched this movie at least three dozen times. I know, it's frightening. But if I let myself be on her wavelength it's actually quite soothing.
However, when Mulan didn't work, she requested Shrek, and I hate those films, so I surreptiously dozed when she wasn't demanding crackers or ice cream. Pretty soon I'll be in a nursing home, and boring an attendant in similar ways so I'm trying to get a feel for it from the attendant's point of view.
My granddaughter is going to kindergarten in the fall. So, for me, there's this feeling of enjoying her now, because I won't have her as long or as often when she is in school, and she'll have made that transition to her peers, and it won't be such a treat to be with me. This is as it should be, but I already miss her scribbly coloring (now she colors within the lines) and her mispronounciations, long gone. I hope there will be a place for me, and I figure as long as we have the soda fountain nearby I can entice her for grilled cheese, potato chips and a vanilla shake. But now I sit beside her and we smile occasionally, and critique the films, and discuss what she did on the weekend, and just hang.
As I age further, if I get babbly and disoriented, and start calling for Mulan, or Belle, or Elastagirl, just remember, what I'm really longing for is a little girl, fresh as a crocus, and the companionship of feeling, not words. The old and the young do operate often on the same wavelength, and we have the time to be together without agendas or plans. It's lovely. Wanna watch The Rescuers with me?
You betcha! We will watch Miss Bianca and Bernard, wearing our elasto-band pants from JC Penney's. Pulled up to our armpits. Bellies filled with grilled cheese and Early Girl tomatoes. The place on the coach at the "home" is waiting!
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