Matt
is visibly, overwhelmingly too big for everything. We told Claire to go play, but she looked like she felt kind of alone. After a bit we managed to
get her circulating some. Spencer went
with, and was clearly, very helpfully encouraging her. We elderlies were taking note. It really is a tremendously designed
facility, full of lots of engaged kids and pleased parents.
After exploring the perimeters we got Claire on the pirate ship, and she climbed up
that cool mast, and came down kind of philosophically. Pretty fun, if not quite for her anymore. Matt was rooting around, and I thought looking a bit
forlorn. Mum told him to get on that ship, even if he was too old and too big. He did, and went back and forth,
reflectively. Later we moved on. I asked Matt if he had felt nostaligic, being
in that place that he’d so enjoyed so long ago.
I asked if he felt bad about how things change, and how things pass,
about how tentative and tenuous everything is.
“No,” he said. “For the whole time I was just thinking, ‘Man
the mizzenmast!’”
