Friday, August 08, 2008

Ocean

"Can we go down to the ocean, Mommy?"

What, right now? Is she not enjoying our cottage weekend? Does she mean on a subsequent vacation? I grapple with subtext, while Helena lifts her arm, points through the trees. Ah.

"You mean the lake..."

"What's the difference between ocean and lake?"

I stumble over some distinguishing characteristics: size, location, flora and fauna. I listen to myself ramble about saltwater and freshwater, and realize interestedly that to me, for some reason, this is the feature that demarcates the difference. I don't think Helena is paying attention anymore...

"Once when I was crying really, really hard my tears fell into my mouth and it was salty but it tasted good so I licked them up. Is that like the ocean?"

[Last weekend we went to the cottage. We leave tomorrow morning for a repeat performance.]

1 comment:

Cipriano said...

What a cute little vignette.
That is adorable, really.
Helena is right... tears are like the ocean. I think the salinity is rather similar, if I am not mistaken.
It's a great poem-idea... I shall work on it.
Crying an Ocean... that sort of thing.
But seriously, when it comes down to it, that does seem like the difference between ocean and lake.
The two S's.
Salt
&
Size.