The Magic Lamp

I flew to Wisconsin on Wednesday to sell my mom's car and the rest of her furniture and to pack up what was left. While I was there, I also shipped the toilet seat with safety bars that she wants in her new place, the framed map of the United States that had always hung over her desk, and the brass floor lamp with a night light in its base that I considered a magical world when I was child, playing on the floor in its glow.

Well, truth be told, I still consider it a magical world, and so I fretted and stewed over that lamp more than anything else that I had wanted to keep from my mom's household. I wanted to check it as luggage on one of my plane trips to California, but the dimensions exceeded the maximum 62 inches. I thought of asking my former mother-in-law to store it for me. I even thought of driving my mom's Camry back to California just so that I could transport the lamp. The pictures of the lamp and me that are featured in this blog were taken by Aaron when I thought I might never see my lamp again. That was before I hit upon the idea of unscrewing the top and the arm, duct-taping them to the pole, and shipping the lamp via UPS.

I felt so good after I made arrangements for the lamp. There are very few things in my childhood worth remembering, but for some reason, that night light in the base of that floor lamp captures a sense of wonder and mystery that I did not want to give up. I told Aaron of the fondness I had for the lamp, but he brushed it off. He thought I was wacko for wanting to drive 2,000 miles just to provide for its safe passage.

I made my strongest case to this scoffing son of mine: "Some day you'll have kids who will play on the floor in front of this lamp. They'll turn the night light off and on and peer into the slits at the base of the lamp where the light shines through and they'll think, too, that this is a magical world. How can you deprive your future children of that wonder, that adventure, Aaron? What the hell is wrong with you? What kind of a lame-ass father are you going to be?"

That, of course, made him smile widely and say, "I guess the kind of lame-ass father who doesn't let his kids get obsessed with night lights."

But you just wait. When I get the lamp in my apartment, guess who will be sitting on the floor, drinking a beer, and turning the night light off and on. Only he probably won't do it when I'm around. Only when he has a few of his beer-drinking friends over when I'm not there. I bet they'll all be switching the light off and on and wondering about the wondrous world contained within the base of my magic lamp.

And some day, some day, Aaron's kids will come running to me, shouting, "Grandma, Grandma, get down on your belly and look while I turn on a magic world for you." That's right. That day will come, for sure.