Coat-Hanger Boy

Yesterday, I saw a tiny boy with coat hanger sharp knees, swathed in a grey baggy uniform and a hat that swamped his bright sunflower curls
He was on a footpath with his bag-laden mum, and a few seconds away from the school he broke her grip like flyaway washing on a dry, windy day.
She called out, trying to reel in his sudden escape as he headed for the gate.
He turned and stopped, his small hand reaching out to the latch as if to comfort a wild horse
In that small everyday moment, his smile cracked the heavens as he sought permission to enter in
He caught his mum’s reprimand, between disobedience and exuberance
I glimpsed this in a millisecond driving past, the joy and expectation of going to school rippling out like a perfectly chosen stone thrown into a pond.
Adulting delivers less of these moments
I plucked this perfect vignette and stashed it carefully away.
Sometime in the future, I will find it, like a lost twenty-dollar note in a back pocket,
this reminder of the small
everyday
glories
of being a kid.