2005 Archives: Pink

I am a hopeless romantic.

And I realized this at my niece's fourth birthday party last weekend. It was a princess party and she, of course, was the princess. She had her frilly pink princess dress on with a hot pink tearra that said "Happy Birthday".

She is a gorgeous, beautiful little girl. Porcelain white skin, wavy blond hair and the biggest, bluest adorable eyes I've ever seen. She has a goofy, innocent laugh and a smile that can make the grouchiest old man grin.

We didn't play "pin the tail on the donkey" but instead played "place the star on Tinkerbell's wand". She loves Tinkerbell, who coincidental is also a cute little blond girl, except that she can fly and there is this magical air about her. Which, I suppose, is what draws any of us to her.

I was sitting across the table from my niece at lunch, just watching her. It made me smile ever so slightly and I chuckled a little bit at her silliness. She looked up at me, furrows her brow and with all the gusto a little girl can muster up she demands to know "What's so funny!?" Which, of course, made me laugh harder and smile wider.

There is something captivating in that little girl's world that races straight to my heart and locks me in. Is it her innocence? Her pure assurance of happiness? Her giddy laughter that knows no end?

And I began to think - where does that go? What happens to all that laughter? At what point did I put the silliness aside and declare life to be nothing more than a chore - a serious, straight faced chore?

"Auntie watch!" She exclaimed, interrupting my random train of deep, methodical questioning. It's really a form of self-torcher, these questions. I don't know why I do that to myself.

I looked up to see this little girl in her pink princess dress, hands placed purposefully on her hips, knees just slightly bent, shaking her butt in the air. And through the laughter she sings, "Shake your smarty pants! Shake, shake your smarty pants!"

I don't think I have laughed as hard as I laughed that day in a very long time. And driving home, on the loneliness of the open freeway, I realized that she has what I long for, what every girl longs for. The pure, hopeful, silliness that settles deep in the bottom of every girls heart. The purity that makes you believe in people simply because they are people and the human soul has value. The hopeful belief that life is not all bad and that dreams are seen through to fruition more often than not. The silliness that carries life on with meaning and joy and laughter.