There is probably nothing more life-affirming than spending time with a child. You see the world anew, through their eyes. Everything is magical and awe-inspiring. A friend recently told me she had returned to the Church (the RC one, though… can’t win ‘em all) after years of being a Richard Dawkins Cult Member, simply because having children had given her that insight into the beauty of innocence again. She realised there was more to this world than the intellectualisation of everything we do.
I spent the week with my surrogate family, in their home on a mountain. I always come back (in the Husband’s word’s) serene. Glowing. Re-ignited. It is a beautiful place and they are a beautiful family. This week, as well as climbing mountains, playing in the park, kicking a rugby ball and hanging out at Caerphilly Castle, we went to the beach. I’m not sure I was really ever more alive than watching the Little Man in rock pools looking for fishies, or staying in the sea until he was blue with cold, but still refusing to come out. Or watching us, intently, as we made sandcastle mounds, only to smash them the minute they were done. In his laugh, there are angels.