the heart and the bottle
Oliver Jeffers wrote my favourite book of all time: The Heart and the Bottle, where the girl, unsure of the weight of her heart and all that came with her emotions within, takes her heart out of her body and puts it in a glass bottle for safe keeping. Once there, she realises that her life with a safe heart lacks passion, excitement and happiness. Most specifically, her mind lacks curiosity - she no longer marvels at the beauty of the world. So eventually, as an adult living an ordinary and boring life with her safe heart around her neck, she tries to remove it from the bottle to put it back inside her body...but try as she might, she just cannot remove her heart from the bottle around her neck.
Today at our book parade, it goes without saying that I dressed up as the woman from The Heart and the Bottle. One of my sweet sweet girls arrived at school and was so concerned that my life wasn't going to be filled with goodness anymore. She spent the morning whispering to the heart in my bottle "I know you're there, I won't forget" and "wait a little bit longer, it will be okay." She turned around to tap the place that my heart usually sits several times during the parade, and was so adamant that my heart needed to be put back in its place as soon as possible, so that my life could be full again.
Forever documenting, I captured the quiet moment we had together where she removed my heart from the bottle, in the most beautiful wee video, which I will treasure for all my days. For her safety, I will not be posting that video on the Internet.
The children I teach are a daily reminder to keep my heart, as heavy and as weighted as it may seem, firmly planted in my chest where it can feel the full extent of situations - both through the light and the darkness, and to marvel at the world in all its glory.
I'm beyond blessed.
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