A Campfire of Words

My Mom, God rest her beautiful soul, held my first child only once before she passed away. 

I remember feeling such pride and awe as Mom, sitting on the couch in my brother’s living room, cooed and rocked and cuddled little Morgan. She looked up to me and said casually but firmly as was my Mom’s style, “Son, you read to this child every day.”

Her attention returned to her little Grandson and I was left to ponder one of those good sentences that changes one’s life.  Vows have a way of centering us, and my silent vow was to be that reader Mom would be proud of.

It has occurred to Lorie and I over the years, with two more sons to read to, that a bedtime story is more than a way to steep our child into blissful sleep, more than a verbal enchantment pleasing to the mind, more than the melodious voice of language venturing forth in story: words at play create a space, a place where we, our sons and Lorie and I are brought together around the campfire of our verbal lives.

Our many campfires have flourished into an active venturing in words of our own, creating our own stories. My son Christopher (who is 8 yrs old) and I will light a candle and embark, using a rhythm and rhyme form, first Dad then Chris.  Something like this:

Dad:         “I walked into the water one day
                 of a stream that wouldn’t move.”

Chris:      “I stuck it with a stick
                 and threw a rock in too.”

Dad:        “The water splashed and rippled
                 as if a tickle had made it laugh.”

Chris:      “Then I saw it run away
                 soI followed it down the path.”

Chris & I journey far on such evenings, each time a little different, sometimes silly, usually inventive, but always satisfying.

At such a campfire, where words spark and the billowing smoke of our imaginations rise, my son & I push the darkness between us a little further away as we gather together around the warmth of our words.

So consider, as you read to your child a bedtime story or elaborate a nursery rhyme, as my Mom would have you do, that you are not just entering a story, you are creating a space in the glow of night that has the power to bond you and your child in immeasurable ways.

When you share your words, words without the burden of the daily chores you converse in, words with no other intent other than delight, you are creating a place for you and your child to gather, a room to go to when words need hearing, a place your child will need to retreat to when his or her world seems overwhelming, a campfire where you two meet and share your lives in the quiet interactions of your words.