The Geography of Hope

In a flash, three delirious wonderful years have passed since the birth of my daughter. Today is Sloane's third birthday. There are more joys and revelations in those years than I could possibly enumerate here - The Geography of Hope is dedicated to her because without the purpose and perspective she has brought to my life, I never would have written it.

Anyway, I don't want to gush on and on about the wonder of fatherhood, but I do want to share a couple of first-rate Sloaner anecdotes. The first is from last November, and it is I guess about the idea of living deliberately I talk about in the book, and about the way a child can bring you back to that pristine mind Thoreau so cherished:

A Friday morning, cold and uncharacteristically damp, Dada and Sloaner walking up the back lane next to the shed toward the car to head for playschool.

Sloane (stops, turns): Dada, what's that smoke there?

Dada (looking around, back at house): Where?

Sloane: Right there. The smoke, Dada.

Dada (points to prayer flags): These?

Sloane: No, Dada. The smoke.

Dada (still scanning sky): I don't . . .

Sloane: The fire next to my mouth.

Dada (awareness dawning): Oh. That's your breath, dear. You can see your breath when it's cold.

Sloane considers, digests, resumes hike to car.



Sloane Lantau Bristowe Turner, firebreathing toddler, Brooklyn Bridge, October 2007
(photo copyright Ashley Bristowe)

The second anecdote is from just the other evening, and it is, I guess, a parable about how Dada's righteous, self-flagellating hostility toward having to drive as often as he does has maybe taught his daughter some things she'd be better off not knowing yet:

In a car bound for dreaded Ikea, Dada and Mumma in the front, Sloane and her grandmother in the back. Passing a construction site on the hillside below Blackfoot Trail.

Sloane: Oh, look! There's a crane, Dada!

Dada (glances quickly): Hmmm.

Sloane: There's two of them standing there. (thoughtful pause) Like stupid assholes.

(Entire car dissolves into helpless, irresponsible, postively reinforcing laughter)

Oh, and here's a special bonus third anecdote, from later the same evening. We were enduring another Ikea marathon, hunting the self-serve warehouse for Sloane's big-girl bunk beds, when the voice came on the PA saying Ikea would close in 15 minutes. Sloane, in an excited panic, began to urge us all to hurry and started running off ahead. Her stream-of-consciousness invocations went something like this:

"Oh, quick, Mumma, Dadda. That man said Ikea is closing, we don't want to get locked in. We'll be trapped like Dorothy in the Witch's castle! Hurry!"

Needless to say, Sloane's current favourite movie ever is The Wizard of Oz.

Happy birthday, darlin'. May your endlessly curious and boundlessly exuberant spirit be with you always.