“And Then She Used Her Magical Horn and Escaped Again”

An important lesson about being in the present learned from my daughter

Daddy! Daddy!

Screams my daughter from upstairs. I am in the kitchen, drinking a cup of coffee with my wife. There is a very interesting sunray sneaking through the windows. My girl stops right in it and her hair starts glowing like a beautiful red fire lighting up the entire room.

Daddy! Daddy! Wanna play?

I am through half of my coffee. I look at the coffee and, feeling my hesitation, she adds

You’re gonna be Tempest and I’m gonna be Pinkie Pie. You’re gonna have to catch me.

And then she grabs my hand and pulls me in out of the kitchen.

So I go. I’m gonna be Tempest.

We walk up the room and we sit in the middle of it. She gives me Tempest and we start the adventure.

HA! HA!, I say. With the power of my broken horn, I’m gonna get you all ponies.

Oh no, you don’t, Tempest. You are evil and we will defeat you.

Pinkie Pie gathered all of her friends and started attacking Tempest. But Tempest had her army of minions and managed to defeat the ponies. When all hope was lost, Spirit, the stallion of the light, came to rescue. With his strength, he defeated the army of minions and broke the chains that kept the ponies locket.

Oh NOOOO! I am defeated! Cries Tempest! I have lost.

.. is what I said.

And then, Tempest cast a spell of invisibility and ran away!

.. is what my daughter added to the story.

The poneis started following her trying to capture and keep her from doing any more harm.

And so I ran from the ponies. Grabbed Tempest made her fly, and got out of the room, with the ponies after me.

I ran for my life but eventually, I got stuck in the kitchen behind the table. I was caught. It was over.

And then, Tempest was saved by a flying minion. He was not killed by Spirit because he flew away.

… is what she added to the story, so I flew away again. And I flew for my life as much as I could. My daughter was right behind me, laughing and having the best time of her life.

You can run, Tempest, but we will catch you. You will pay for what you did

You will never catch me! I will escape and will get my revenge.

We rand through the burning fields of the office, through the sea of the living room. And write when we got the Stair mountain, Tempest collapsed. Her minion got tired and he fell from the sky.

And Then She Used Her Magical Horn and Escaped Again. She gave some energy to the minion and he got back up.

And so, after she added this part to the story, we went on.

This repeated a little until we stopped because we wanted to eat.

I always wondered what happened. Why did she not want to be caught?

You see, I wanted to give her the victory. I wanted to make her feel powerful and learn that she can defeat anything and win in any situation.

That was what I thought she needed.

But then I realized it. It was not what she wanted. She did not care about the finish. She did not care about winning. She knew she can win.

It was about the play.

It was about enjoying the play. She did not care about the ending, winning or losing, or where the story went. She was enjoying the moment! She was present all the time in the game.

If you liked this story maybe you will be interested in a discussion I had with my son about faith in humanity

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