Spilly and the Fish

So tonight we had a little time before bath time, and I said, "How about a story?"

"Great!"

"What do you want?"

"Buddha."

We have a book called Kindness, which is a collection of stories about Buddha. So I chose the one about the blind men and the elephant, the one in which each man feels one part of the elephant and thinks that he knows about the whole animal. Then, of course, everyone argues about what an elephant is like, because their experiences are all limited and none of them recognizes the full picture.

"Why are they all mad at each other?" Spilly asked.

"Well, they can only see their little piece of the elephant. They think it's the whole elephant. They can't understand each other's point of view. Really, they are all touching the very same animal, but they don't know that. If they knew that, they wouldn't be fighting."

Spilly was silent for awhile. Then she hopped off the couch. She said, "Be RIGHT BACK."

A few moments later she returned, wearing her enormous fuzzy blue fish hat, the one with luscious lips and a tail that swishes when you shake your head.

She hopped up on the couch beside me, and said, "Feel my head. What do you think it is?"

I felt the tail. "This is definitely a fan."

Spilly felt one of the bulging eyeballs. "No, it's a ball for playing."

I felt the lips. "No, it's a rainbow."

She took it off her head, and waved it in front of me. "MOM!!! IT'S A FIIIISSSSHHHHH!!!!!"