The Walk

I love the concept of "prophecy fulfillment" raised-and coined?--by Liza and will write on it more. I think it is wise to think of ways to counteract it, or to prophecy only for the good, although that, too, I think, can be limiting. Controlling, anyway, on the part of the parents or whomever is sending the messages.

But for tonight, to ease into the weekend, a tidbit, a scene--for me, because I will want to remember it years from now, when Annika asks why her baby book is empty, when Lily asks why I never managed to learn how to use the video camera.

This afternoon, after hours indoors, I asked Lily what she thought we should do for an excursion. Annika was up from her nap, and it was clear all three of us needed a little airing or somebody was going to start yelling; it could have been any of the three. She decided we should go to the toy store, which in New York, in our neighborhood, can just be for a visit; for years we have been making this little trip to play with the trains, to decide what we might like for Christmas, even in March. Lily was just about Annika's age the first time she walked there by herself, but I'm not sure it would have occurred to me to have Annika walk today, had Lily not started preparing her doll carriage.

Annika watched for a few minutes, and then got the little doll stroller for herself, emulating Lily by strapping in the tiniest doll, packing a bottle and a few random things from the floor of the playroom underneath. "You want to take that?" I said to Lily, knowing she did, hoping for a miracle--it's amazing how unfettered I feel now when I walk down the street without, say, a bag of stuffed animals or a ten-pound scooter.

"Of course," she said, giving me that "Are you losing it?" look and pointing to Annika, who stood ready by the door, mini stroller in front of her. "And she wants to bring that." 

I looked at Annika hard. She had never seemed such a little girl, less of a baby. She beamed at me, so proud of her stroller, of her packing job. "Baby," she said, pointing at the doll, and I took a deep breath, checked the time on my phone. We set out.

Two hours later, we returned home. No, we did not take a detour to midtown at rush hour, a Circle Line Tour of the city. We walked, Lily pushing her carriage, Annika pushing her stroller, to the toy store, a BLOCK AND A HALF away from our apartment. It is true that we stayed at the toy store for a half hour or so, meeting some kids, checking out the new trains, the Playmobil display, the Easter goods, the bucket of sparkly rubber balls. We purchased one small bottle of "invisible ink," from that company that manufactures old-school gag toys like whoopie cushions and vibrating handshake devices, which Lily refused to use as a joke, per its intent, preferring to explain it to everyone we met, then asking permission to squeeze a small sampling onto their clothing "as an experiment." We stopped so I could show her how you were supposed to do it: Ostentatious fake trip, the dramatic splash of ink across the clean shirt, the horrified expression, the over-the-top apology, and then, the pay-off, the big finish--the disappearing of the ink right in front of our eyes! I was impressed by my performance, a little deflated when she cocked her head, considering, and said, "That's interesting, I guess, but I think I'll use it my way."

But I digress. That's not really what I want to remember at all. I do want to be able to close my eyes and see the two girls, both smiling, walking behind their strollers in their little coats, their cheeks pink, their stride serious. I want to remember that Lily stopped on the sidewalk to get her baby a bottle, and that Annika stopped too, eyes enormous when Lily told her to shush because the babies were sleeping, and that Annika then bent down and found her own little pink bottle, placed it gently on her own tiny baby's body, and looked at Lily for approval, grateful for the "Good job," Annika," she received. 

When we were close to home, I walked behind them, tired from the excursion, from carrying Annika and her stroller across the intersections, from picking up the toys she took off the shelves in the store, from explaining to Lily for the zillionth time why she could not also have the stapler shaped like a cat, from the slow, slow pace, the apologies to the people we all walked into, the fallen strollers, the dropped bottles, the day. But although I was tired, am tired now, all I felt as I watched their little backs ahead of me, Lily's increasingly long-legged, big-kid swagger, Annika's teetering yet confident gait, all that I felt was joy.