And the Magic Word is...

“Poof!” Rem shouts to no one and everyone. “I am the Cat in the Hat!” Instantly transformed by means of a yellow hat and a Mardi Gras umbrella, he begins quoting lines from the book. “Have no fear! I will not let you fall.” And I watch him grab a book and put his foot on a ball to mimic the mischievous character before falling to the ground with a big grin. He embodies these characters of his with great conviction, never for a second believing that we could mistake him for anything other than the current personality he is portraying.


“Make that cat go away,” I improvise, as I continue folding the insurmountable load of laundry beside me on the couch.


“I will show you another good game that I know,” Rem says, jumping up before he vanishes.

Lise walks in and hands me homework to look over and sign. Rem, still wearing the yellow felt hat, returns to the living room with a Lego box and announces with great bravado that he will show us what is inside. He lifts the lid and eyes us expectantly as, out of the box, he explains, come Things One and Two. Lise reluctantly shakes hands with the invisible trouble makers before disappearing with her completed work.


The game continues until Miren, trying to practice piano, fortuitously cries that, “Our mother is near! I saw her. So do something fast!” Rem scrambles to retrieve his little push car and begins cleaning the mess and soon, we all hope, the game will end. Before I have put all of the laundry away I hear him shout again.

“Poof! I am Captain Hook!” He emerges from his room in a pink bathrobe with a foam sword sheathed in one of the belt loops and wearing Miren’s oversized straw hat backwards (the orange chiffon scarf dangling in front of his face). He is all fierceness and hilarity. He busily eludes the crocodile and searches for Peter Pan while trying to engage his sisters in a duel.


Later, Rem finds me in the kitchen and, discarding his pirate garb on the floor, reaches his arms upward so that I will pick him up.


“Poof,” he says, rather exhausted. “I am just Rem.”


After a long week of playing nursemaid to various family members (fate’s ugly retribution for my recent boasting of my family’s good health), I, too, want to say “Poof!”


Maybe I’d find myself in Paris, the feel of the city’s ancient and new dust on my skin, the smell of patisseries and boulangeries heavy in the air. I see myself as clearly as Rem sees himself in his many roles, sitting at a table on the sidewalk in the Marais, with the plat du jour in front of me and a carafe of the house wine nearly empty as Craig and I talk about our long, eventful day. Craig speaks with enthusiasm about the Pompidou Centre, the architecture and the modern art collection and we sigh over the works in the Louvre where we stood as close to the paintings as the masters themselves. Tired from the museum rush and the long stroll through the Tuilieres we still rise from the table anxious to meander along the Seine and enjoy the city as the moon ascends above the city lights.


“Poof!” Now I sit on the beach on an unusually warm October day. A book sits open on my lap but my eyes are fixed on the rush of water as it makes its way toward me over the sand. The ocean breeze, as it rustles through the grasses behind me and the rhythmic movement of water drown out any other sounds that may be floating in the air.The beach is empty apart from a dog running ahead of its owner some distance away, whose steps take them further and further from the scene until I feel quite alone and serene. I dig my toes into the warm sand and feel the mellow autumn sun’s heat press into my skin. Before long, I find myself ambling along the irregular, fluid edge of the water oblivious to measurable time and its constraints.


“Poof!” Rem wriggles free from my arms. “I am a fairy. And you are the fairy’s mommy. You have to find my magic wand!”