Our area of town, South of Gloucester Street, is putting on a scavenger hunt “safari” for the kids.
The premise is simple: houses and businesses place animals in the window and parents can take their kids for a walk (following safety precautions) and see how many animals they can find. Parents can then parlay this into different learning activities at home. Our house has eight animals on display including, of course, a narwhal.
The above photo is the window of a local shop, Antiques Etc. This shop is in the process of going out of business.
And yet….this shop put up the most amazing display for the kids. This shop and it’s owners, care so deeply about this community that even in the midst of their personal struggle, they manage to put the town, the kids, the future first.
That is the test isn’t it?
In every crisis personal to pandemic, divorce to disaster, the test is “How did the children fare?” And “What fare, what price did we pay?”
It is a balancing act and a charade played out in every war torn land and every battlefield of a family. It is the mask of normalcy worn in the face of uncertainty. The brave face that hides the frantic whisper.
It is a universal test and it unites us all.
It is a father in Syria teaching his child to laugh every time a bomb explodes.
It is a mother in a homeless shelter telling her children they are on an adventure.
It is a shop going out of business, and a community on the brink, placing animals as endangered as hope in the window, beckoning the future out of hiding, out of quarantine out of isolation, luring it forth so that we may get a glimpse of it if only from behind glass.
around town.
Sweet Tea The Narwhal And Me 