It's Just Paint

E was 22 months old when we attended our neighborhood festival on a perfect spring day. There was a moon jump, or as E calls them a "jumpy jump", in the middle of festivities. It was a grand castle that E was quickly drawn to when we arrived. The castle soon became her domain that she ungraciously shared with some other children in her kingdom. One of her counterparts had sat patiently while his entire face was transformed into Spiderman by the talented face painters. Apparently after the paint was applied he found his way to E’s domain and began to bounce. E did not notice his entrance until she came face to face with the boy and his face paint.  Her shriek came after a glorious jump and letting out a loud giggle in mid air. When their eyes met E’s grand personality shrank before our eyes. Her face went straight and she started her immediate retreat by backpedaling out of her castle as quickly as she had entered.

She ran barefront across a few feet of hot payment and stood at my feet begging to be carried away from the castle. Tears were streaming down her cheeks as I scooped her up into my arms. I tried to find the right "mommy words" to comfort her but instead of using any of them I blurted out, “It’s just paint!”. She pulled away from my shoulder and cocked her head; staring at me like I was crazy. I found that trying to explain the art of face painting to a toddler is a futile effort so I stuck to my basic definition and first explanation of what she had just seen, “It’s just paint”.

E did not recover quickly from that experience. Her question, “Mommy, it’s just paint?” as she touched her face continued on well past the trip home that day continuing into the next few weeks. Now when we seek to understand something trivial, something that either does not make sense or does not warrant the time needed to truly figure it out, we simply shrug our shoulders and say, “It’s just paint!”

My further reflection on that little encounter has me thinking my simple statement is fairly deep. So many things in our lives are superficial even though we transfer a greater meaning without true cause for doing so. When those little things get to me, I have to step back and say at the end of the day, “It is just paint”.  I give thanks for E and for the countless lessons she has taught me but this is one I shall never forget.   All "paint" washes off at the end of the day and I now understand it is the stuff underneath the paint that counts.