(Temari 09, via flickr.com)

I was standing outside our bedroom door that…should have opened onto a deck, but didn’t.  Only visiting kids pointed out this fact.; the fall would have killed you.   ;o)

My husband and others in the doorway were looking toward me eagerly, almost nodding with anticipation, awaiting some response, but what?

Someone’s eyes glanced down the slope toward the garden where a new rock lay.

I had asked my husband to keep his eye out for a Special Rock to balance on top of the new tree stump my son had created at my request; it required a bit of art to finish it.  I’d described to him roughly what I was hoping for.

We live at the terminal moraine of what was once the La Plata glacier; thus: rocks are in my blood, my life.  I have dug them and barred them outta the ground; built retaining walls of rock; cold-chiseled and laid flat rocks for pathways and a patio; encrusted a chimney and outside walls with…rock.  You get the picture.  ;o)

But here was a Rock of Rocks (roughly six by three, and oval and flattish…a Big Un, with some stacked oval shapes toward one end.

A Good Rock.  A Wonderful Rock.


I smiled in wonder and conveyed with my glance at the assembled group that I was worried that Mr. Davis had carried it here by himself; they all waved off my worry with their hand gestures and head-shakes.  The rock drew me back and as I watched, it shimmered a bit, and the shimmers took on color…and vague sparkles of light.

I laughed with pleasure at the change, and as I did, the rock grew and bulged a bit and began to change shape.

Out of the shimmer emerged a head. and a nose that reached upward to sniff the air, and as it stretched upward a neck and chubby torso took shape and took life.

A brushy pale moustache appeared…and flippers…and I whooped with laughter.  A Walrus Rock!

The sound encouraged more life and fluid movement…now everyone laughed and the power of mirth gave it more life yet.

He suddenly clapped for himself, and quivered with anticipation, his pale lips in a delicate pout of pleasure and pride.  His softly-colored barnacles glistened in the light.  He shifted his weight and gathered himself in what seemed to be a determined position and posture…he was the only thing in my world just then, a sublime magic that seemed natural, somehow.

Ready now, he stretched toward the turquoise sky and launched himself with grace and abandon…he twisted and turned and somersaulted…he made his own music as he danced through the air.  He made faces with his lips and bristly ‘stache, shook his head to his created rhythms.

He ducked and feinted and parried and did loop-de-loops…and figure-eights that left trails of light and color… and…satisfied… landed back on the big rock oval.

He clapped and barked mightily for himself, and bowed.

 

I didn’t have a fish to throw to him.