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Family Storytelling

Seeing Unicorn Horns and Noticing Penguins

The green grass in the football arena is plastic. It’s the only grass I’ve seen all year.

My kid runs after the football, high-fiving pals I didn’t even know he knew.

At bedtime, he makes my hair into a unicorn horn.

”This is nice! I’ve always wanted to be a unicorn!” I reply dutifully.

”I hear they get paid pretty well,” replies the kid who says he’ll either become the President or the World’s Richest Duck. I decide to trust his judgement.

”I wonder who would pay me to be a unicorn, though?”

”A billionaire would.”

”Ah, true. A billionaire really would.”

My other kid blends fantasy with reality in a more subtle, seamless way, and it’s hard to tell what really happened during his preschool day. His stories are long and detailed and they always have a suspiciously close connection to what we were just talking about.

”Tell me about the time a wild penguin photobombed your photo!”

I tell them.

And then the real story starts.

”My friend Oliver at preschool said that his dad, who is a truck driver, once took Oliver fishing in France, and THEY saw WILD PENGUINS there. And it just so happened that a penguin photobombed his dad’s photo shoot, too! The penguin was very cute. They go there every summer.”

I’m not even focusing on the part about wild penguins in France, because I’m trying to imagine Oliver’s very posh-looking looking dad as a truck driver. He has the look of someone who does something serious for a living.

”Are you sure he’s a truck driver?”

”Yes, he is! Oliver told me.”

A bit later, he muses in a lower voice, ”I wish nature was left in peace and no one felled any trees.”

Leaving football practice, a plane flies high in the sky and a dad stops to watch with his son.

It reminds me of when I first started seeing airplanes after Covid and it felt like I was in an episode of a zombie saga, incredulously witnessing life resurge again. Who is flying that? Where are they going?

These are the pieces that, together, form my day.

What about you? Are you type of person who would notice an extra penguin in a travel photo or muse about the tiny people in airplane windows? What are your daily conversations like?

50 replies on “Seeing Unicorn Horns and Noticing Penguins”

… they always have a suspiciously close connection to what we were just talking about.

I love that observation. Made me laugh out loud. As for noticing extra penguins, yes. Tiny people in airplane windows, less yes. Our conversations are often about words, one of using a word incorrectly, then laughing about why we think that word means what it doesn’t. 

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One has fantasy, the other is dedicated to detail. I bet they are going to be a writing team for televison, if that still excist when they are grown up, or very complicated northen policiers with lots of far to long and cold winters and murders by the dozen. I know of people making a lot of money with this trade, maybe even more then the world richest duck. (That said, the ten crime novels from the Swedish couple Sjöwall and Wahlöö are still worth reading!) My daily conversations are often about things I see and read on WordPress from fellow bloggers. My wife is used to me out of the blue saying things like: Did you know penguins prefer to sit at the window when they fly by plane? She then acts like she is genuinly surprised by this fact and before we know I’m mansplaining the entire universe in general and why penguins hate wearing safety belts in particular. (They don’t like peanuts either). And so life ticks away. 🙂

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Thanks for the laughs, Peter, your comments are always guaranteed to do that! 😆 A writing team for TV: I would approve of that! (I predict that tv series will always be around as an easy form of entertainment, even though the viewing device will evolve). So, my list of approved future professions for my twins now goes like this: President, World’s Richest Duck, Doctor, Writing Team. A while ago, I was actually talking about the series Stranger Things with hubby (have you seen it?). It was written by twin brothers (and perhaps directed, too?) I wonder what it would be like to write in a team. I’d like to do that one day…. probably won’t get the chance, though!
On another note, I really love Wahlöö’s Nordic noir novels and when I was a flight attendant, I saw several penguins eating peanuts in business class!

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Lol! I forgot about the penguins in business class. 🙂 I haven’t seen Stranger Things, but I will try to look it up. Writing in a team can be inspiring, be it alone you need to commit yourself to the plan you both made. I wrote an opera with a friend of mine, the libretto, based on the medieval tale of Reynaert the Fox. It was big fun. We split up the ‘chapters’ or scenes, wrote the parts individualy and then commented on each others work and edited when necessary. Alas the composer fell ill and the project dissapeared in a drawer, from wich it came 10 years (!) later. It was such a thrill hearing your own, almost forgotten, words put on music for the first time. I remember we looked at each other with a large smile. So yeah. I can recommend a writing team! Maybe in some years when your sons are a bit older?

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Well same here! Whenever I’m brainstorming for ideas to blog about, it’s always the weather that pops up and nags at me, until I eventually include a remark (usually complaint!) in my posts. I just can’t help it. So we have the weather in common!!!

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Good to hear that kids still use their imaginations! My conversations usually include weather, food, and awful drivers encountered on the highway, excepting myself of course. My most enthusiastic generally involve the natural world – something seen in the water, an unusual bug, birds engaged in normal bird behavior. I hope you get to see natural grass again sometime soon!

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Yes, imaginations are still there! They currently love pretending they are Power Rangers and it’s quite funny and cute, until they kick something breakable. But I’ve noticed they no longer like to play with toys really (they are just under 7), whereas I played with toys until I was at least 10-11!
As for natural encounters, I’m happy that you’re sharing some of your observations online!

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Your conversation with your kids are always entertaining. Their imagination knows no bounds, which creates wonderfully imaginative tales. As do you! 🙂 Where did the grass go all year long? I suppose they are not just ordinary grass after all. Hehe 🤪

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Thank you, my dear tropical friend! Where does the grass go, you ask. Well under the snow, of course! Oh how I wish I didn’t know this, I miss seeing greenness. When the snow melts, last year’s grass is there, but it’s dead and it has turned brown. If it warms up, eventually new grass will come, but we still had heavy snowfall just a week ago and spring is very late this year. How are you doing? ☺️🌸

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No more daily conversations like that, but I sure miss them! Our oldest son told the best stories and made up the goofiest things. Enjoy all this while it lasts … then again, your fertile mind may keep you in this realm forever!

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I don’t think I’ve ever seen a wild penguin in France although I thought I once saw Joan of Arc and her army slipping quietly through the forests of the Argonne. I think people are still trying to adjust from the pandemic and it is strange. I don’t think either of my children inherited my wild imagination – to them, I’m just a silly old woman! Enjoy these years!

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I wish I had daily conversations like this!  I’ve not had penguin photo bombs but relate to people in planes. I’m back on the island and when I hear the biplanes over the water, I think of holidayers, homecomers, naturalists, filmmakers … all the people taking brief respite from real-life. :-)

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All good, thanks! Just wishing it was warmer. Last weekend we had a blizzard and it’s almost May!!! Still so cold. Today, some sun though. Also quite tired from working with no holidays or any kind of break, Finnish style if doing things when you start in a new company. My German friend says they start earning holidays and get to use them straight away! Not us. And you, how is it going in beautiful Mexico?

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Sorry about the hard work… Il y a des moments comme ça.
All well here. Just a couple of operations, first me now my wife, but recuperation is fine… Can’t wait to go back to the “country house” and enjoy the sun outside the world…
Au revoir Lumi.

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Do you have a photo of your unicorn hairstyle? I’d love to be a house cat, they lead the best lives. Sleep, eat, get cuddled, play and then just repeat it all. No worries, no responsibilities, no duties

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A sweet glimpse into a day inhabited by you and your rock stars. Your end-of-post questions made me wish to rebel and ignore them, but I do muse and, having a dog rather than kids, my musings go like this: “If I write a novel in dog’s voice, is it fiction or non-fiction?” and why are there so many on sale signs all around where I live. What do they know that I don’t? How high is the sea really going to get?

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Ooh, nice to see you’re not completely gone! Yay! And I can’t believe you answered the teick questions!! (Just kidding. I was just musing, thinking out loud and I always think in questions. Sometimes they have answers, too.) But I would answer your questions like this: Documentary-autobiography! Sale = everyone is worried and aren’t spending. What do they know – they have become pessimistic. And probably high. Is it high now?

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Tawaki penguins migrate from their breeding sites. Were they to migrate to France I would guess they might leave New Zealand house at half past nine
In two straight lines in rain or shine-

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Being a writer it is more internal conversations with my characters who visit me fully formed and come say hello visit for a while tell me their stories and then either leave or grab a chair and sit and listen to the next one. Either that or heckle the story teller and fights break out.

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