Exploring the universe upside down

Exploring the universe upside down

Photo by Michaela Kliková on Unsplash

Originally published 18 December 1995

Sit here, Vic­to­ria, next to Grand­pa, and I’ll read you anoth­er chap­ter from our book.

Yes, Songs of Papa’s Island, by Bar­bara Ker­ley. Look, here on the back flap is a pic­ture of the author. It says this is her first book. It’s a love­ly book, with illus­tra­tions by Kather­ine Tillot­son, and that’s one of the rea­sons why I gave it to you. The win­ter hol­i­days are a per­fect time for books.

Bar­bara Ker­ley has a daugh­ter, just like the daugh­ter in the book. And Bar­bara Ker­ley once lived on an island in the Pacif­ic Ocean, just like Mama in the book. Mama tells her daugh­ter sto­ries, about the time when Mama and Papa lived on an island in the Pacif­ic Ocean. She calls the sto­ries “songs.”

When Mama and Papa lived on the island, the lit­tle girl was not yet born. But she was alive in her Mama’s bel­ly. Wait­ing, wait­ing to be born.

I’ll read you one of the songs, Vic­to­ria. This one is called “Ceil­ings, Walls, and Windows”:

Geck­oes. On the day you were born, you lived on an island in the mid­dle of the ocean. In the mid­dle of this island was a small house. And on the ceil­ings, walls, and win­dows of this house, there lived geckoes.”

Geck­oes. What a won­der­ful name, Vic­to­ria, for fun­ny lit­tle crea­tures with hooks on their toes. Tiny lit­tle hooks that let the geck­oes climb on walls and ceil­ings. Lots of lit­tle geck­oes, upside down.

Would you like to have geck­oes in your house, Vic­to­ria? Lis­ten, as Mama continues:

When you have fifty geck­oes liv­ing in your house, you get to know them pret­ty well. I liked them because they ate mos­qui­toes. They’re dif­fer­ent col­ors: gray or brown or green. They have round eyes but they don’t have any eye­lids. With­out eye­lids, a gecko can’t blink. So it keeps its eye­balls wet with its tiny pink tongue.”

That’s one of the things I like about this book, Vic­to­ria. The things that Mama sees. She sees lots of things that most of us miss. Like the col­ors of the geck­oes — gray or green or brown. Like the miss­ing eye­lids. Like the tiny pink tongue.

Mama teach­es her lit­tle girl to see. That’s a won­der­ful gift for a lit­tle girl to receive. More won­der­ful than any expen­sive toy that San­ta might leave under the tree. Geck­oes gray and green and brown. Geck­oes wet­ting their eye­balls with tiny pink tongues.

The preg­nant geck­oes have huge bel­lies, with an egg on the right and an egg on the left. If I came home at night and the lights were already on, I’d check the win­dows before I went in. With the light shin­ing behind them, the geck­oes became trans­par­ent. I could see their insides. There would be two white ovals nes­tled beneath the spine.”

Imag­ine, Vic­to­ria. Imag­ine see­ing two lit­tle eggs inside the mama gecko. There are so many things in the world that are hid­den from our sight. Invis­i­ble things. Impor­tant things. That’s why we have tele­scopes, and micro­scopes, and x‑ray machines. But the best instru­ment of all is the human eye. That’s what Mama used to see the two lit­tle eggs nes­tled beneath the spine. The human eye and a lit­tle imagination.

Once I opened the cur­tains and found two tiny eggs on the win­dowsill. I left the eggs alone, and one day they were gone. Two more babies were walk­ing on the walls.”

Two baby geck­oes! Most peo­ple would call in the exter­mi­na­tor, but I think the lit­tle girl’s Mama was lucky to have geck­oes in the house. When your Grand­ma and I go to the Bahamas, we some­times have lit­tle brown geck­oes in the house. Just one or two. They don’t walk on the walls and ceil­ings, only the floor.

Now we are near­ing the end of the song. The lit­tle girl has been born, like the two lit­tle geck­oes, and Mama has brought her home from the hos­pi­tal. Lis­ten to Mama’s song again, Vic­to­ria, and you will under­stand why I gave you this book:

Final­ly it reached the spot where my icy drink had been. A ring of con­den­sa­tion lay on the table top. The tiny gecko drank like a wilde­beest at a water­ing hole. In the sleepy days that fol­lowed, I would set my drink out ear­ly. And as you nursed and dozed, the tiny gecko would drink deeply from that ring of water.”

Lots of geck­oes were in the house, but the lit­tle one remind­ed Mama of her lit­tle girl.

Yep. That lit­tle gecko remind­ed me of you, or of who I hoped you’d be: some­one who explored the uni­verse, right-side up and upside down, but stopped every once in a while for a nice, cool drink of water.”

That’s what I wish for you, Vic­to­ria, on the best of all Christ­mases — what Bar­bara Ker­ley gives her lit­tle girl and the read­ers of her book. Not a big­ger tele­vi­sion, not more com­put­er games, but desire to explore the uni­verse for the rest of your life, right-side up and upside down.


Excerpts from Songs of Papa’s Island, by Bar­bara Ker­ley, illus­trat­ed by Kather­ine Tillot­son. Text © 1995 by Bar­bara Ker­ley. Reprint­ed by per­mis­sion of Houghton Mif­flin Com­pa­ny. All rights reserved.

Share this Musing: