MUDDY WATERS

This is a picture of my two sons from ten years ago. Their pants are down and they are squatting. I thought that they were pretending to poo. My wife reminded me that they were actually trying to give birth.

Did they become the five and three year-old fathers of tiny humans scurrying across the floor?

Last night my son, aged 15, dreamed that there were doctors in the walls and that Muddy Waters had installed a doorbell in the drywall.

When I went with my Grade Six students to Camp Wanakita, we told them that there were leprechauns in the woods. We told them what signs to look for and how one must say ‘Top O’ the Morning to Ya,” to greet a leprechaun. We had them build tiny amusement parks out of twigs and leaves. I was horrified by how much they trusted us and believed what we said. I couldn’t help but think of pedophiles. I was shocked to have so much power, yet charmed by my students’ willingness to imagine and to believe.

I have an agreement with my 9 year old not to tell her mother that Santa doesn’t exist.

Sometime in the last ten years, tiny human children removed my wings and replaced them with arms.