“For your potions?” I said.

“Yes,” he replied with all of the seriousness a four year old has going about such things.

Then he sat on the deck under a table, doling the soapy water out between buckets. The buckets were already full of water, dirt, mint leaves, grass and pine cones.

“I don’t know what they do because I haven’t made them yet. I’m still making them,” he said. “They’ll sit here overnight.” He chose a stick and began to stir.

I smiled, remembering my own hours spent in my childhood yard mixing potions myself. I would roam my mom’s flowerbeds, searching for just the right weeds to add. There was one single plant in the corner of the yard that yield a single huge seed that I’d seek out like it was an impossibly magic item.

I’d plop myself down in the dirt, stick my shovel in it and dig out all sorts of treasures. It was a pile of yard waste, but with my imagination, it was magic.

It’s magical for him as well. I love that he’s invited us in a sense to participate, to join in on the shared world he’s creating in his head. It’s a privilege. Knowing that he feels safe enough to share this with us, that we won’t laugh at him or say that it’s unimportant, is fulfilling.

Although I no longer make potions of my own, seeing the world though his eyes opens that magical realm back up to me. And I can never be grateful enough for it.