Breaking the Rules

The days are very short now — over six hours shorter than they were in the long, languid days of June. My four year old daughter looked at me as the sun set a little after 4:00 pm yesterday and she said “I am tired of winter now. Is it spring soon?” The weariness was evident in her little voice, her pouting lip nearly touching the frosted window that looks out over our bee hives and far ridge where the sun sets too soon. It made me sad for a moment and I nearly reflexively told her it would be spring soon and not to be sad. That is not the way though. In that brief moment, I thought of a friend who, seeing his toddler bumble toward a low coffee table with sharp corners, did not tell his child to be careful but instead quietly placed his hand on the sharp corner as his child toddled by, her hair brushing the back of his good hand. I caught myself before I made this rigid correction, however comforting it may have been intended, and I told her instead to put on her snow pants. “But it’s dark out” she protested. I was taken aback. Where did this wariness of the dark come from, this timidness, this choking safetyism in my otherwise bold girl? Had it been some warning I had previously issued carelessly to get her to come inside after a long day? No matter, it is my good duty as a father to beat back the darkness and the monotony with torch and holly branch and all the other good green arms passed down to me through the heroes and stories of yuletide yore. I had an idea and offered with a grin, “Do not worry about the dark. The moon is bright and the snow is good for sledding.” She lit up and rushed to the mud room to put on her snow gear. I stood there, next to the window and by our bright Christmas tree and a realization dawned: this is the time of the year we need to break the rules.