Maatstaf. Jaargang 27

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Donald Weeks Two Presents From Megan

About nine o'clock at the Monday evening before Christmas, the telephone rang. It was a long-distance call, from Detroit, Michigan, in the u.s.a., to me here in London, England. The person ringing was Bob, the senior editor of a publishing company there for which I do research. Coming from Detroit myself, I have never thought of myself as an expatriate while settling here in London. I mix well with the people here - and also with the people I have met during my travels throughout England, Scotland and Wales. Yet I propose to continue to ‘think’ as an American.

Bob's voice was easily identified. It is a friendly voice, filled with a congenial warmth. He may never have uttered a cross word in his life - if such a cross word ever entered his mind. His voice is a summation of his attitude toward life in general and expresses the personification of a peaceful human being.

Although a week before Christmas, he wanted to wish me the merry sentiments of the Season, as well as tell me that a certain type of work would be required of me in the new year, which he was detailing in a letter to be sent from Detroit that day to me here in London.

In mid-December of the previous year, Megan came to London for an extended stay. Meg lives in South Wales and, in mid-December of that year, had just been four years old. She was not only staying in London but also in the same building in which I live. We certainly were no strangers and I have seen her ever since she was a baby both here and in Wales.

Last Christmas was Meg's first Christmas. Before, the day had just been another day for her. And what she may have thought of the presents handed her was certainly something which only a new three-year-old could answer. But, last year, she knew that Christmas was coming when she arrived in London in mid-December. She knew that Christmas was coming - and everything related to it: Father Christmas, decorations, a Christmas tree, a Christmas stocking and - last but no least - presents. At this time in mid-December, I very unconsciously introduced her to something: the calendar. The element of Time is about the last thing a child understands. A child cannot be taught anything. It can only learn - and mainly through experience. In the fundamental things - such as walking, talking and eating - the child imitates older people doing the same things. But the child cannot accomplish the same degree of perfection in the matter of walking, talking, etc., except through repeated efforts of its own experience. And, in most things that a child wishes to emulate in the same manner as an adult may do them, it is only through tangible experience that a very young child may understand such things well enough to imitate them. Time is intangible. Therefore, it cannot be reckoned. Time cannot be pointed at or explained away as a colour, a flower, a bird, a piece of clothing or food.

Trying to maintain my originality of thought, there are certain words or phrases I do not use. I do not even like them. I find them trite, too commonplace or even meaningless. Some

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children are said to be ‘bright’ or ‘smart’ or ‘intelligent’. But, for me, such labels are too general. For Megan I have but one description: ‘alert’.

Seeing some children in their prams in the street is as seeing so much deadweight just slumped over the side of the pram - as if a sack of grain were riding - in the pram - and emitting no more closer semblance to life. When Meg rode in a pram, she was always sitting at the edge of the seat, her two bright eyes constantly taking in just about everything this side of the horizon. At only two years old, she knew numbers - what they looked like and their names. When she was yet only two - practically on the eve of her third birthday - I had occasion to wheel her in a pram down a street in which all the doors displayed their numbers. And she said: ‘There's a nine; there's a seven; there's a five; there's a three; there's a one.’ Of course, the numbers we went by were 29, 27, 25, 23 and 21. At only two, however, she was incapable to put the two numbers together - such as ‘twenty-nine’ - but she did know - and could read off - the single numbers from 9 down to 1. Numbers are another experience for a child. And numbers find their place - sooner or later - in the elements of Time. This was why I ever so unconsciously pointed out to her the days on a loom-woven Japanese calendar - where we were on one day on the calendar in relation to Christmas Day. Although, of course, she does not know exactly what a calendar is or is she able to read one, she no doubt has a suspicion that, in some way, it is connected to Time, although she could give nobody a clear definition of it.

She can use the expression, ‘Wait a minute,’ and knows that it denotes an interruption in the clear continuity of Time. And, again unconsciously, I speak quite naturally with her, saying such things as ‘last night,’ ‘tonight,’ ‘tomorrow,’ ‘this morning,’ etc. One day she was down to see me and, before she left, she asked if she could come down again. I answered: ‘Why, yes, you can come down later.’ Well, some time after this, there was a soft tap at my door and there was Meg and her first question was: ‘Is it later?’ - to which I said Yes and in she came.

It was not on January 1st this year; but on the other months, I devised a sort of celebration. Beginning with February 1st, she would come down to see me and on the first of each succeeding month we would celebrate Calendar Day. Each of us would close our eyes until I was able to turn over the new leaf and, then, upon opening our eyes, we would see the new illustration for the new month.

At any rate, Christmas Day eventually arrived last year - a splendid day of enchantment for Meg, aware of all its pure radiance for the very first time. The brilliant mystery of it all added to the excitement far beyond her usual effervescent self. But the one thing which continually played on her in later days was the stream of presents presented to her on Christmas Day.

The sagacious Mark Twain once pronounced: ‘The odd thing about babies is that when they do not know more than you do about Life, they smirk at you in a manner which suggests that they do.’ Another writer, an Englishman, Newman Flower, wrote that ‘babies know everything’. As babies grow up, do they immerge in an atmosphere of ignorance? An adult would, no doubt, adduce this view. But, if ‘babies know everything,’ then is their growing up no more than a readjustment of their inborn knowledge? The more adult a person becomes, the more complex he also becomes - and the more confused. The simplicity of childhood - with its far wider limitations of imagination- - is superior to a mature man of a profession, even at the top of his chosen field. It is still the child that is the common denominator between the computerized reality of the adult world and the nonsensical sense of the true world populated by children. A child's eyes are clearer than any adult's - and can see the invisible visions which construct a stabilized architecture for Life - even if it be only for the years of childhood. Nevertheless, it is constructed out

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of firmer stuff than any adult-made fibre.

Of course, I have known Meg since she was a baby. And I first was ‘associated’ with her when she was a toddler. At no time did I consider her age. I accepted her - as a person. If I wish to acquaint myself with anyone, I ask no questions about his or her backgrounds, including age. To me, a person is a person, regardless of age - truly an irrelevant thing in this matter. It was thus that the association between Meg and me grew.

Perhaps the most touching moment I know about concerning Meg occurred when she was about two. I had been talking with her parents in one room when her mother left - only to return immediately, a finger over her lips and her other hand beckoning us to the kitchen. And there Meg was - sleeping. But that was not all. She had fallen asleep standing up - but with her head softly resting upon the seat of a chair. Until mid-May of this year, Meg became a daily visitor and we played games mostly devised by her lively imagination. ‘Shop’ was one - in which we ‘bought’ things in a ‘shop’. ‘Ship’ was another - and many a time we had to ‘stay aboard’ because of the sharks and other nasty creatures in the water ‘below’ the ‘ship’. But we did possess ‘guns’ to ‘shoot’ any monsters crossing our paths. ‘Tree house’ was another game - when we had ‘found’ a ‘tree house’ which had once belonged to a giant who now had vacated it and we were perfectly welcome to anything we found there. A leftover from Christmas on Meg's part, ‘Presents’ was a game we played the most - wrapping up and, then, unwrapping ‘presents’. There was the game we played once. There was the game we played many time. We also wrote - or, rather, hand-printed - and drew pictures. Meg learned how to write when she was only two and she could write her name and about half a dozen other people's, including mine. And she is very observant in the elements of drawings - knowing which elements fit together to make a person, a flower, a sun, a sky, a horse or other animals. And her drawings are the sort which should be preserved - or, at least, some of them. Of course, she herself thought highly of most of them - and these now decorate my walls - ‘stuck up’ by her.

Her energy was vitally apparent in the games we concocted. Yet there were times she would let me read to her. Sitting on the floor, I would open an illustrated book and proceed to read the story. She would sit next to me, with her head resting on my body, silently listening or asking me to repeat some sequence. The book most read to her by me was The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf and Robert Lawson. Meg has almost always been self-sufficient. At an early age, she learned to do all the necessary things for her, as a person, to do. For one thing, she could dress herself, but - as alert as she was - she remained a universal four-year-old. It was not until she was five that she could place her left foot into her left shoe and her right foot into her right shoe.

As formative a person as she is, she has had her periods of inconsistencies. Early in this year, at the end of a session with me, she would at times dilly-dally at the foot of the stairs - until I picked her up and carried her upstairs. Then there came a short period when it was an insult to touch her. When I suggested that I carry her, she firmly said that she could walk up the stairs by herself. This was followed by a period during which she said that she could not walk. I asked her what that meant - ‘Should I carry you up?’ This was answered with a nod of her head.

Meg's Number One friend in the whole wide world is Jessica, a girl who also lives in Wales and who is slightly younger. Jessica is dark. Meg is pink-skinned and blond, with two shining dark eyes. As able as she is to converse, she does say something at times which is a piece of unexpected sophistication - such as: ‘Jessica and I do not always do it this way.’ This coming from a four-year-old!

And what four-year-old does not wear plasters - mostly, it seems, on knees? And Meg was a typical four-year-old. Some injuries - no matter

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how slight - caused sobs. Some were accrued unabashedly. But each required the necessary plaster. Meg is not all play and no seriousness. She is an adept ‘workwoman’ - setting things in order and keeping them as neat as can be. She also helps her mother in whatever chores she can accomplish. And, so, one day she appeared with plasters on three of her fingers! She had been helping her mother cut vegetables. During the early part of this year, Meg learned of two kinds of plasters: her mother's and mine - for more than once I had to remedy a cut or bruise by applying a plaster - and she decided that she liked my plasters better. (I use Band-Aid.)

Another remarkable thing about her, is that she has been able to carry on a real conversation ever since she was two. She knows the construction of language in general. Tenses, of course, are something she will eventually learn in school - in that she just cannot tack ed on the end of a present-tense verb to make it past tense. Also, she may use a word such as ‘betterly,’ to describe something better than better. But in none of these things do I correct her. She is speaking in a perfectly natural way to her own thinking and will, also naturally, discover the correct procedure of words in school. She is proud about many things - her dresses, even her own name - and, being proud, she will also be so in speaking - urgently learning the proper things to say which will be taught her in school. (When she was only two, I was suddenly surprised to hear her use the word ‘beautiful’ - containing one more syllable than her age in years. Between two and three, she did speak of being ‘comfortable,’ but condensed that word into ‘comfor'ble’ - which was exciting to hear from the mouth of a three-year-old.) Not only did she see Christmas in London last year, Meg also saw spring. She is truly a little girl. She glories in things associated with little girls: dresses for one thing and flowers. Whenever the weather was nice, we would go out. And, on such occasions, she spent a lot of time just picking flowers - regardless of colour or size. (It may be an exaggeration to say here that she picked a million flowers. It just seems that she did.) Nor was she content in merely picking flowers. She knew that a picked flower had to be kept alive by being placed in water. Well, what would be used to hold the water? She solved that problem easily. She also ‘collected’ old tins - some rusty - which would become ‘vases’ for the flowers. Just before she left London, she was forbidden to bring any more flowers back to her flat. So, the flowers she picked on the sly were given to me - to keep. Near us there are two playgrounds. There is also a canal. And we would walk along the canal number of times - sometimes being rewarded by seeing a boat going through a lock. In Wales, she lived on a farm and was familiar with horses, cows, pigs, dogs, cats, geese, hens. In the street in which I live in London there is a police station, from which come mounted policemen every day - on beautifully clean horses. On occasion, there is also a brewery dray pulled by wonderfully kept strong horses. Of course, the ducks on the water of the canal fascinated Meg. And she knew the difference between the ‘mommie duck’ and the ‘daddy duck’.

Meg returned to Wales in mid-May, but only after enjoying a beautiful spring in London. April was the proverbial month of sunshine and flowers. Everything sparked. The grass became greener. The wintry skeletons of outdoor flora took to leaf and colour, to bud and blossom. Such Rites of Spring were very evident - as the visual attraction of the open spaces produced this especial season of the year. And, as the warmth of the blue skies stroked each new glory of spring, Meg bubbled over in a new awareness of Nature. As the previous Christmas had been the first one for her conscious mind, this new season was being accepted in a way never before experienced by her. As wonderful as Christmas was, spring was so much more wonderful. Christmas had been confined to a date and a place. Spring had no limitations.

Being together as much as we were also included meals at times. These were not many, although

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each day we had a slight snack. My mother and grandmother had impressed on me that I need never starve if I had flour, milk and eggs in my larder - the ingredients for a pancake made in a large frying pan. And, one evening, I suggested this to Meg, who immediately wanted to ‘make’ it herself - leaving me with thoughts of flour being spurted all over the room. But, she being insistant, I feebly gave in to her wishes. She had to stand on a chair by the kitchen counter and she expertly stirred the flour with the milk as I poured it into the mixture and cracked the eggs in the same bowl - with not one fleck of flour wasted. This produced a large pancake - each of us having half, topped with honey and eaten with a glass apple juice to ‘rinse it down’.

During the spring, there was another celebration: my birthday. Without any actual mention of it, it was arranged that Meg and I would go on an excursion. We went by boat down river to Greenwich. On the trip down, a loudspeaker was almost continually blasting away with some sort of historic information which may or may not have appealed to an adult tourist. None of it interested four-year-old Meg. Instead, we pointed out the stretches of sandy beaches we would see or point to pigeons or seagulls on an old wharf or warehouse or to some sparkling new ship we were passing. We, of course, went under Tower Bridge, while Meg called it Sparrows' Bridge, taken from some story or poem which she knows and I do not - although I now think of it as Sparrows' Bridge. We first had a sandwich at a café and then visited Cutty Sark and spent a great deal of time going through it - although the most pleasure derived from the ship by Meg was merely running back and forth on the upper deck. We also went up to the Maritime Museum. Surprisingly enough, there were a number of exhibits which interested her. We then found the museum café - and I had a cup of coffee, while Meg had a glass of orange juice. If I had gone by myself, I could have seen all in a relatively short time. But a child cannot be hurried. We did not return home until 5.00 o'clock in the afternoon. Yet there is one thing about the trip which still sticks in my memory. On the way back, we had been talking. Then, for some unknown reason, each of us was silent for a few seconds. Then, all of a sudden, she said to me: ‘Thank you for the lovely boat ride. I had a nice time today.’ I just looked at her - hardly believing what I had heard.

Another excursion was to a museum called the Commonwealth Institute - and is a most marvelous ‘museum’ to take a child to in London. Hardly any exhibit is in a glass case - most of them being ‘out in the open’ and three-dimensional. The Institute is built on various levels in a circular building. From the centre of the ground floor, a person can see almost anything in it. At any rate, we wandered around the ‘museum’ any number of times. We stopped - more than once - to see the exhibition of plaster penguins. We stopped - several times - to see two huge paper dragons from Hong Kong. And then there was a see-through cow. By pressing a button, the operations from eating grass to producing milk were shown. This, again, was one exhibition to be revisited. Another oft-repeated item to be seen was a stuffed neck and head of a giraffe, whose neck she patted. But the crowning ‘exhibit’ was not to be found at the Institute - but at Lord Leighton's house - only two blocks away. In this house of the Victorian artist - who designed the lions at the foot of Nelson's Column, Trafalgar Square - is the most beautiful room I have ever seen. It is Moorish - all in blue-and-white tiles, with delicate wooden lattice work and soft-cushioned window seats. But the most marvelous feature of this room is its sunken pool, with a jet of water flowing upward. Meg fell in love with what she called ‘The Room’ - and we had to see it again at a later date.

At the end of April, I developed a cold. There was one day that I wondered how I could see Meg. In the early afternoon, she came down and I managed to spend an hour with her. At the end of this period, I had to tell her that I

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was not feeling well and was going to lie down. We had a small snack and she departed with a true appreciation of my state. I did lie down. But about twenty minutes later a little tap was heard at my door. Meg was there - but not to come in. She just wanted to know if she could come down later - to which I agreed. As wretched as I was feeling at the moment, I felt amused by this incident. At about 5.30, Meg came down and stayed until about 6.45 - which was perfectly all right with me. We sat at the table and she did some drawing and cutting out and pasting together - and I just sat and watched. So, it was not too trying for me. In any case, things can be explained to her and she fully understands such things as colds. (She herself had one just before I did.)

Anyway, mid-May arrived. And Meg departed. In looking back, it was difficult to evaluate that period from mid-December to mid-May, during which I had seen Meg each day. At the time, I hardly had consciously given her a thought - just taking it for granted that I would see her each day. It was not until after she had returned to Wales that I discovered a part of my daily life had been removed from me. It was more than a week before I myself ‘returned to normal’ - a normalcy of a world in which I met people each day but not one of them being four-year-old Meg.

However, she was back again for about two weeks in mid-June. The sunshine was then different. New flowers were growing. The trees and bushes were fuller in bloom. And Meg herself was different. Still the same mild-mannered little person, she seemed to have ‘grown’ in the month since I had seen her last. She had grown in height a fraction of an inch; that is true - but something else had ‘grown’ about her - she seemed to be more mature. Up to mid-May, I had called her Little Megans. But in mid-June she did not seem to be as little. Yet she was the same four-year-old. And we associated in the same way, including another excursion. Meg and I went to see the Walt Disney Pinocchio. It turned out that this was her first introduction to a cinema - with a programme including a Mickey Mouse cartoon, a live Disney film about a hound who thought he was a racoon and, then, Pinocchio, which was impressed on her retentive mind.

After this period in June, I saw her only spasmodically from time to time. The last time she was in London was two weekends before Christmas. And, at this time, she had just become five years old. But the idea about Christmas was as active in her imagination as the previous year. And I again pointed out the days between her visit and Christmas on the calendar. Christmas was coming - and one thing this meant was decorations. So, she gave me two things I could use as decorations. One was a plastic fibre boot - no doubt Father Christmas’ - about two inches deep and with a sparkling, red fringe around the top of it. The second item was actually made up of two things: one green and one orange ribbon - in somewhat of a tangled mess. Anyway, I did hang up the boot and dangled the ribbon from it - all to Meg's approval.

That weekend - two weeks before Christmas - she was here from the Friday until the Tuesday. She appeared at my door on Friday evening quite unannounced, for I had not known she was going to be in London. I saw her again on Saturday and for quite some extended periods on Sunday and Monday - and again on Tuesday morning - right up to the time she was packed in a taxi to Paddington - catching a train there for Wales.

On the Monday night, she came down to see me twice. Each time she came, she brought a present. Each present had been ‘made up’ by her. No one else in the whole wide world knew about these two presents. They were solely from her and solely to me. They were what she wanted to present to me - what she wanted to give me - what was intended to be only between the two of us. No one else in the world mattered. The two presents concerned only two people: Meg and myself.

Each present was wrapped in a single sheet of

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white stationery paper - 8 1/4 inches by 11 1/2 inches. One side of the paper was blank. The other side had black multilithographical printing on it. When she gave me each one, she said that it was a Christmas present. And I said: ‘All right. I'll save them until Christmas Day and then open them.’

One of last year's Christmas presents to me was a beautiful Christmas stocking made by a fourteen-year-old girl living near Washington d.c. It was basically red felt, with patches of other cloths, lace around the top, and gold ‘sparklers’ dotted on it. When I first saw it last year, two questions came into my mind, one superimposed upon the other: ‘What is it?’ and ‘What do I do with it?’ It was biggish, but I never tried to see if it would fit on my foot. However, this Christmas that stocking is in Wales. I sent it to a florist, telling her to fill it with a dozen pink roses and deliver it all to Meg on December 24th.

A few days after this Christmas, Bob's letter arrived. In his first paragraph he commented on the trans-Atlantic phone call and said: ‘You sounded very fit and cheery - a week before Christmas.’

How I would have sounded to him the very next day, I do not know. But, once out on Tuesday, I became depressed. Not mentally. Merely physically. I suddenly became aware of the millions of people I was passing in the streets - presumably all Christmas shoppers. I felt ‘weighed down’ and wondered what Christmas was all about. The audible and visible displays in the shops attracted people to buy Christmas presents - presents they would not understand or need, nor would the persons receiving them.

The real meaning of Christmas seemed to evaporate right there in front of me - watching this steady parade of shoppers and which had only one meaning: the Commercialism of Christmas. And, because of this Commercialism, these people were going in and out of shops. They were away from their usual haunts - and away from their almost continual watching of tv - in a collective way so reminiscent of the packed crowds in the Coliseum of ancient Rome. The idea of Christmas Today, for a short period for me on that Tuesday, took on a futile guise. But that thought did not dwell within my mind very long.

I did know what Christmas means.

Christmas is a day - a day of Magic. It is a day for which preparation has been made - of a most singular kind. It is not highlighted by the tinsel of decorations or a tree. It goes far beyond that - into the very heart of the beholder. All the thoughts and expressions of Christmas are reflected in but one pair of eyes - and that reflection makes Christmas true. As long as there will be the excitement of anticipation within a child's mind - as long as Christmas can be reflected in the eyes and mind of a child - as long as the Mystery of this day retains its Magic for each child - there will be a Christmas. All Christmas cards sent to me await Christmas morning for my opening of them. At the same time, I open what presents I may have. This Christmas, the first thing I did was to open the two presents given to me by Meg. The first present - and each was wrapped and cellotaped by her - had lettered on it: ‘donld form Megan’ - under a drawing of a Christmas tree with two presents beneath it - all done in blue. The second present was also lettered in blue: ‘donld’. (She goes to a Montessori school and her spelling is phonetic. As for ‘form,’ it has the required letters for ‘from’ - but they just fall in a different way.)

No other presents - for a very long time - have been so surprisingly touching. How could any other present - even be it of gold, frankincense or myrrh - compete with these?

Last year, Meg only received presents, without knowing the meaning of them, especially the giving of them. It has only been during the past year that she has learned the full significance of a present - including the giving of one. With this realization in mind, these two presents she gave to me take on a much more individual

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perspective.

Present No. 1. On the inside of the wrapping paper lines were drawn in purple, orange and black crayon - a ‘pattern’. Inside of it were two things. There was a smaller package, wrapped with the same paper and labelled ‘donld’ - inside of which was an orange ‘pattern’ drawn on the paper - and nothing more. The other item in the outer wrapping was an old, small notebook, filled with drawings she had made during the past year.

Present No. 2. This contained two small child's handkerchiefs and two fat crayon stubs.

What other person of any age - and four or five is a substantial age - and Megan is a person - could have said ‘Happy Christmas’ more wonderfully or more personally?