Rock collecting

My little girl collects rocks.

She collects rocks wherever she can find them.  Jagged rocks and dull rocks.  Large rocks, small rocks, blue rocks, white rocks.  Rocks in funny shapes.  Rocks in normal shapes.  Rocks with faces or personalities. And rocks that don’t have a single remarkable quality except that they’re rocks.

She tells me, “Daddy, I found some nice rocks today.”

“And where are they?”

“In my collection.”

At this point, I’ve learned, it would be prudent to conduct a search of my rascally four-year-old smuggler.  But alas, I refrain, being the trusting father I am, and she scurries on her way to marvel at her legendary rock collection.

Its location, she imagines, is secret.  But I don’t need to look for it, because it always comes looking for me.

I find rocks in her bed.  I find pebbles beside the toilet, presumably having fallen from her pockets.  Dust in the vacuum cleaner mingles with an assortment of stones.  When I do laundry, I don’t find loose coins at the bottom of the washing machine, but rocks, all sorts of rocks, all suitable for a wondrous collection but none having found it.

Sometimes a pine cone accompanies the rocks, or a dead dandelion picked for daddy.  Sometimes the rocks gather for conversation in her shorts.  Sometimes they party in her jacket.  The rocks flow into our house like settlers drifting westward across the plains searching for freedom and happiness.  They traverse stairs and bathtubs, foyers and countertops, all on a quest for salvation.  They seek my daughter’s rock collection.

But they never find it.  Because her rock collection exists only in her mind.  She collects these rocks daily, but forgets them moments after they leave her hand.  She’ll tell me all about her collection, and she’ll confess a love of gathering and hunting and finding just the right specimen to tag and shelve.

But there is no rock collection.  It’s an object of fantasy, residing only in her wonderful imagination.  And to a father who marvels every day at the power of a child’s mind, it’s the most splendid collection I’ve never seen.

I shall encourage her collecting.  So long as I don’t step on any more blasted rocks!