Gavin’s most recent obsession is with skin and bone and muscle. Do tables have bones? What holds your skin up? What happened to Harry Potter’s bone? What happens to our skin when we die? Look, I’m lifting this with my muscles.
We’ve been talking about mammals and fish. He keeps asking if sharks have bones, just to hear me say that they don’t. It’s fascinating. The questions, and the explaining.
“What color is your blood?” he asked me.
“Red,” I answered.
“Red. Not green?”
“Red.”
“Me too,” he said. And was quiet for a time.
Gosh, I remember this — the fascination with the natural word and particularly with how living things work. When I was Gavin’s age, my favorite thing was catching lizards and bugs… in my safari hat.
Actually, I would probably still do that if I wasn’t so inhibited.
We’d catch tree frogs, green turtles, and lightning bugs. I miss lightning bugs. The hills used to be lit with them. The first time I saw them, I thought they were tiny lanterns hovering in the air. Magic.