Carefree

Slap, slap, slap went the tiny feet across the glittering wet sand. Speckles of white spume clumped like Spring-snow as the waves receded - drawing-back, ready to massage the sand one more time with its warmth.1

Jade, her head thrown back and chest thrust forward, sun-bleached hair flailing behind her like a colt's mane, ran as hard as she could along the seemingly endless, caramel-coloured beach. With a sigh as loud as the air-breaks of a lorry, she flings herself onto her knees before me - sand and droplets of salty ocean cascading across our towels and my freshly-oiled pot-belly. Like an infantile Buddha, her own little belly heaved beneath the bubblegum-pink swimming-costume. Gasping for air,  words tried to crowd out of her mouth so fast that her deep-brown, wide-open eyes simply had no time to blink.2

'Daddy, daddy! There's a stripy tent with puppets in it over there. Can I watch them?'3

She had never experienced Punch & Judy. The gaudy canvas and squeaky voices had obviously triggered a desperate need in her to watch a crocodile be beaten and a baby flung from the stage.  Cruel parodies of ‘real’ life.  She sagged before me in a zazen-position so natural it would have made a Taoist master-monk nod sagely in approval. Her place in the cosmos so clear to her. The one-ness with the Earth beneath and the sky above so obvious and unquestioned by this naïve entity, who's 'now' was a puppet-show. 4

'Do you need a wee, Princess?' I asked pre-emptively.5

'No'6

'You want to put a t-shirt on?' I worked through the checklist.7

'No thanks.8

'Would you like some sausage and chips, ice-cream, cokey-coke and bag of crisps? Came the next set of critical items.9

'Hmmm, yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah!' She confirmed with the passion of Scooby-Doo being offered a scooby-snack. The breathing suddenly under control and the eyes utterly focused on me at last.10

The sun sparkled off her brown body.  Dew-like seawater trapped in the raised hairs of her goose-bumps.   Bejewelled by the elements and her body's instinct to stay warm. Not a moment too late, I wrap a fluffy bath-sheet around this cherub. Her perfect, white teeth showing as her jaw began to chitter. What does this being of pure joy and uncomplicated love care about hypothermia? Her gaze and soul utterly focused on the tent that so closely resembles a giant lump of peppermint-rock planted in the sand. 11

'Daddy, I need a wee...' The next most critical theme in her life made itself known.12

Smiling, I draw her into my arms, still cocooned in toweling, and move towards the promenade. Her uncluttered mind deals with one thing at a time and she does the next obvious thing, with no concern for the fading past or the veiled future. A simple wisdom that is inherent in us all, but all too effectively becomes buried amongst the stresses of adulthood, if we let it. She is happy.13