Spoon Sprints

 

We started hearing them in Our Basic Training. Yes. Our earliest moments here on Planet Earth were filled with silly rhymes and riddles.

So.

How much do we hear and know, and remember, from those very first days? The lab coats at Harvard say, that in the first few years of life, we will have more than 1 million new neural connections which are formed in our little heads, every second. This initial growth spurt is pretty intense. These are the building blocks of our brains. The foundation. The cornerstones. The groundwork.

This is the time when our minds are being shaped for all that is to come. And what do we fill them with?

Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man.
Bake me a cake as fast as you can….

It is no wonder we were drooling during the majority of our infant-dom.
Personally, I think these rhymes really stick with us. In fact, they mostly haunt me these days. Not all of them, but most. We should probably review a few.

Cock a doodle do
My dame has lost her shoe
My master lost his fiddling stick
And doesn’t know what to do
And doesn’t know what to do.

Yet another classic example in the Nursery Rhyme and Fairy Tale world, where some flipping woman is losing her shoe. For heaven’s sake. In all my days, I have never lost a shoe. Ever. Granted, I don’t go leaping about in glass slippers and such, but even still, a good pair of Dr. Scholl’s inserts would cure that crime. They all lose their blistering shoes. Cinderella notwithstanding.

Are you sleeping? Are you sleeping?
Brother John, Brother John!
Morning bells are ringing!
Morning bells are ringing!
Ding, ding, dong.
Ding, ding, dong.

This one probably started bothering me around high school. Definitely college. And here it is. If you go up to someone who is lying horizontally, and loudly pronounce, “Are you sleeping? Are you sleeping?”….. you just better be prepared for what the answer is going to be. Oh. And. Worse yet? “Are you awake?” Ding, ding, dong. Ding, ding, dong.

Next.

I’m a little teapot
Short and stout
Here is my handle
Here is my spout
When I get all steamed up
Hear me shout
Just tip me over and pour me out!

I would be remiss if I did not mention Teapot. Probably my Mantra, really. Well, I am not exactly short, and pretty far from stout. (Okay, so I am more like a French Press.) But I will tell you what. When someone heats me up….. … like the Hilton Reservation 1-800 Help Desk yesterday….. .. I get more than a little steamed up. And good old Hilton “Alex” from India, will definitely hear me shout. No fiction here. Guilty. As charged. Is there a line about the teapot with a short fuse in the next verse?

Despite the downsides, there are a few good rhymes. The Notables. The Standouts. The Luminaries. The ones which hopefully formed us the very most. My all-time favorite?

Hey, diddle, diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon;
The little dog laughed
To see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.

Now. If that doesn’t make your day, I don’t know what will.
Spectacular.
All of it. Synchronicity. Beauty. Miracles. Magic.

Today, I hope, your dog laughs a little.
And your cat plays the fiddle.

And that you bid them well, when the dish runs away with the spoon.

============

“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”
― Roald Dahl

=============

“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to do it.”
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

==============

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”
― W.B. Yeats

==============