Now That's A Big Lizard...

...took my two year old daughter to Toys R Us in Times Square. First event was the Square itself--Ella loved it. We went at night, lit up like a Christmas tree. We step out from under the subway entrance, Ella looks around wide-eyed. I go "This is Times Square, E". She takes it in, replies "Times Square make Ella awake". So far, so good.

Next stop, the five story, multi-level Mecca of toys known as T's R Us. First encounter? Guy dressed up as a Giraffe. El goes nuts. Giraffe goes nuts, big hug fest. So, on we march checking out Lego sets and train sets and dolls (no real interest in Barbie yet) and stuff in general and a few hundred yards away I can just make out what appears to be a giant, life-sized Tyrannosaurus Rex, fully articulated with audio. Loud audio. Like, cover your ears-from-the-concussive-force-of-his-RRROOAR loud.

El sees me look over, hears the sound and says "I see that...!". I pick her up, we head over and I'm thinking "Hope this isn't that seminal moment in her childhood which sparks a lifetime of therapy...". So, we're walking over and El sees this giant, jaw-snapping monster ahead and gets quiet. I stop about, oh forty yards away and we just stand there. T lets our a mighty, really loud RRROOOARRR. El's watching, just watching then turns her hands, palms up (which is her gesture for like, "get it?") and says "Big lizard not real".

No we go regularly. She's never flinched. Just runs like a little pony right by Big Lizard to the toys while unsuspecting Japanese tourists spit up their bottled water every time T-Rex lets a roar fly directly overhead.

Which got me to thinking--no, not why aren't Japanese tourists immune to the whole T-Rex thing having grown up with Godzilla stomping their villages in to matchsticks, rather--how do we lose that innocent yet acute sense of perception? That simple, wholesome and fresh perspective which sees things for what they are? Or aren't?

Example, I get on the subway in the a.m., and there's a bunch of T-Rex's roaming, roaring and jaw-snapping inside my head. They roar "You're gonna die poor, alone and unhappy!". They bellow, "You'll never have a job you like". Sometimes they snap their jaws, clicking "You know squat about the dharma, quit trying to act like you can change who you are!".

And you know, a lot of times I just stand there, not even hearing the music from my ipod (Lots of Kanye West these days and some old school--The O'Jays, Chaka Khan) just deafened by the roars, nodding my head "Yes, you're right--I cannot change, I'm stuck with who I am and all my sh*tty, self-doubting, dysfunctional ways...".

But sometimes I remember, "Big lizard not real". And I just stay in my body--feel rooted and don't get freaked by the loud roaring in my head. I can feel the subway jostling back and forth. Hear the O'Jays in my ears old school Philadelphia style, telling me to "...get on board the love train, love train c'mon...", and I choose to not get rocked by any old monster in my head.

So, the weekends here. Will probably make a trip to Times Square, E and I are due to check out her boy, T. His days are numbered. Too expensive to keep the hydraulics maintained. Staff says back in the day, in fact the very first day they turned him on two years ago, hydraulics all new, limbs all fresh and mobile--well, he was so life-like people ran out screaming and they had to turn him off.

I guess everything wears out after awhile, even Big Lizards.