LIVING FOREVER

"It is a scene of ongoing and apparently undending destruction, of natural chaos: a kewpie doll gazing upward as if pleading with heaven, an abandoned spaceman, a deflated something, pajama parts, a doll carriage on its side, one green frog slipper, an empty finger puppet, a fire truck, a magic box, a wooden spatula, something unscrewed from something important somewhere in the house, a toppled toy ambulance, a calculator, lots of books opened up and thrown face-down in a random pattern, a deflated big pink boxing glove - the list goes on - one twin perpetrator sits on the big gray elephant, the other dressed as Pooh chews strategically on a pink toothbrush, while Kaya cleans up some sox that have been thrown around…"

That's just a brief and harried excerpt from some notes I managed to scribble yesterday afternoon while minding Kaya (who helped with the minding, actually) and M&M for two gigantic hours, hours jammed with minutes packed with seconds made of a special age-old material that stretches to infinity without breaking or showing any other sign of change, apart from what kids can do to scenery.

Out in the snow, in by the fire, upstairs spilling water, downstairs spreading ink, scissoring paper or curtains, magic-markering table or floor... One twin, pausing in her labors, runs to me and opens her mouth to show me how full of cookie it is, then heads off to crumple up some playing cards while the other dances with a pink plastic coat hanger, shouting in Twinlingo "An jeeyan, an jeeyan!" ("Look at this, look at this!" or in Japanese: "Mite, mite!"[meeteh, meeteh] just to show how far Twinlingo is from either)

Neither twin can stand still for long, but soon begins helplessly bouncing forward with no particular destination in mind; as a direct correlation I too can't stay still for long, but I'm not bouncing. When I manage to grab a quick sitdown, Mitsuki (or is it Miasa?) comes up to me and in all earnestness strikes me three times on the forearm, then runs off to shake a pink elephant watering can full of cutup paper fragments as Miasa (or is it Mitsuki?) comes up in her turn and earnestly strikes me once on the knee, before bouncing off to chat privately with a small tiger.

With afternoons like these, who says you can't live forever?