Are you ready to meditate with Kari?
Make sure that you're laying down and you're all snugly and comfortable and warm in your bed.
The lights are just right in your room.
Are you ready to relax your body and let go of your busy,
Busy day?
Jack was ready to let go.
Oh,
He was so ready.
He'd had a really good day at school and then after school he played soccer and then he got home and he was filthy.
It had been raining a lot where he lived and the field was still soft,
Muddy puddles here and there.
It was so much fun to play soccer in but at the same time he really needed a bath.
He opened the bathroom cabinet doors and pulled out his magical finger paints,
Put them on the side of the bath,
Quickly got out of his soccer uniform,
Threw it on the bath mat and jumped into a warm,
Luxurious bath.
His body instantly went,
Ah,
As he laid back and rested his back on the back end of the tub.
He closed his eyes for a second and just felt the warm water all over his body.
And when he opened his eyes,
The water colour had already changed.
There was that much dirt and mud stuck all over his knees and his legs and his elbows.
He even had dirt in his hair.
He held onto his nose so the water wouldn't go up his nostrils and he dived under the water and rubbed his hair with his free hand,
Rubbing out all the crispy bits of dirt that had dried in his hair.
When he came up to the surface there was even chunks of grass floating on top of the bathtub.
It was pretty gross,
But he didn't mind.
Ah,
It's only dirt,
He thought.
Once he'd washed off all the chunks of mud off his arms and his legs and his face,
He then reached for his paints.
The finger paints that his grandma had got him.
The finger paints that the very first time he used had some very magical experiences with.
He opened up the packet and looked at all the different colours.
And then he took a moment to think about what he wanted to create.
He knew by now because of what happened last time that everything he paints on the wall,
The white plastic wall around the bathtub will turn into something that's real.
It literally like comes to life.
What would he want that would come to life?
He thought about it for a second.
And then he took out the black paint.
He poured some in his left hand and dipped his two front fingers from his right hand into the paint like his fingers were the paintbrush.
And then Jack started to paint on the plastic tiles on the walls.
The tiles were white and they were the perfect canvas.
Jack painted a guppy fish.
He wanted a fish.
His mom won't buy him a fish.
What's wrong with my mom?
Is she crazy?
Everyone should have a fish.
That was his argument.
Every child should have a fish.
Because I mean,
How are you going to learn to look after a pet if you can't even look after a fish?
His mom told him,
I think we should start with a plant,
Jack.
The plant,
He said.
I don't want a plant.
I want a fish.
His mom said,
If you can take care of a plant in your bedroom and remember to water it and take care of it,
Then maybe we'll think about a fish.
That was going to take forever.
Jack thought.
It takes ages for a plant to grow.
He thought to himself,
Poor.
But he knew right now in this moment that if he painted a guppy fish,
He would have a fish.
Genius.
He pulled back and looked at his guppy fish.
It was perfect.
It was quite big,
But it was perfect.
Big bulging eyes.
That was his favorite part about the fish.
And it had a tail that had droopy like ribbon like parts to it.
He always thought that that looked so cool floating around in the fish tanks when he watched them at the pet store.
It took a moment.
One moment.
Two moments.
But then it happened.
Jack's big black guppy fish jumped off the wall.
Jumped up into the air and acted as if it was swimming through the air and then plopped into the bathtub.
And all the black paint just dispersed into the muddy puddle that he was sat in already.
That was so cool,
He thought.
But it was just a split second.
One or two seconds of having a guppy fish was pretty cool,
But it wasn't very long.
How can I make these things last a bit longer,
He thought.
I know what.
Jack started to frantically paint a really big,
Really big mountain on the bathroom wall.
He had to stand up.
It was so big.
It took him a while.
It was really realistic.
It was all different colored tones of grays,
Some brown in there.
There were little bits of green where the foliage had grown on the side of the mountain.
And then he focused on a big,
Big dark black opening in the mountainside,
Like a walking cave or something.
He took his time and painted all the shadows that it would create,
This big,
Deep hole in the side of the mountain.
And then he stood back when he was finished and looked at it.
And like magic,
It started to go from 2D flat,
Just like a painting,
Into 3D.
And then it kind of lifted off the bathroom wall and became so real.
Jack peered inside of the big opening,
The big mouth of the cave.
At first he was like,
Ooh,
That looks a bit daunting,
A little bit scary.
But then he was like,
No,
I painted it.
I'm not going to paint something that's going to hurt me or scare me.
I'm going to paint something interesting and cool and magical.
Jack could literally peer his whole head inside of the big,
Dark opening.
I told you,
He painted the mountain really big.
I wasn't kidding.
It was like almost the whole size of the wall in his bathroom.
He could definitely get his head and his shoulders in that cave.
And when he peered inside,
You wouldn't believe what he saw.
First thing that hit him was all of these brilliant colors,
Bright,
Shining,
Really,
Really gory colors.
Red rubies,
Blue sapphires,
Green emeralds.
And there was so much gold everywhere,
Like pouring down the walls of the cave.
And then he realized what he was looking at.
The cave that he painted had treasure inside.
Yeah,
Like when you open a pirate's treasure box,
You know,
Like a treasure chest,
And you open it and you see it.
And when you open it,
It's got all of these bright,
Brilliant,
Gleaming,
Shiny gems of gold and silver and emeralds and pearls and pearls.
I don't see any pearls in here,
He thought.
He looked around in the cave from left,
Slowly all the way over to the right.
And then he spotted something big and white and round,
Way over to the right side of the cave,
Peeking out through the green emeralds and the red rubies and the blue sapphires,
As if all the other gems were covering it.
And there was just this small amount of white beaming through all the other colors.
Is that the pearl,
He thought.
He was interested in pearls because his mom's favorite were pearls.
She had a pearl necklace that her grandma gave her that had been passed down through the family,
Generation after generation.
Jack liked his mom's pearls,
But he didn't want his mom's pearls.
What was he going to do with his mom's pearls?
He was hoping his mom had another kid,
A girl,
And maybe she could have the pearls.
Or maybe he'd have to wait till he got older and got married and then his wife could have the pearls.
And thinking about getting older and getting married made him go,
Ugh,
Yuck.
Just the thought of it sounded pretty gross.
But if he could find a pearl for his mom,
That would be awesome.
A pearl that he could actually keep.
A pearl that didn't just fall into the bathtub and disappear into nothingness,
Dissolve into the endless water particles below.
He reached one of his hands inside of the cave and he could do it.
He could actually feel stones in his fingers.
He rummaged through golden coins,
Golden goblets,
Golden everything.
He thought about the fact that he was rummaging in this cave full of treasure.
But when he painted the mountain with the cave,
He didn't have any thoughts in his mind at all about treasure.
In fact,
He wasn't thinking about anything that would be inside of the cave.
He just thought he would paint a cave because caves are pretty darn cool.
They're always so mysterious and fun looking.
You just always want to go in a cave,
Don't you think?
That's what he thinks anyway when he sees a cave.
So the fact that the cave was full of gems and stones and golds and treasures surprised him a little bit because he didn't even know that that was in his mind.
He reached further in,
Deep,
Deep all the way to the back on the right hand side and pushed all the stones off the pearl.
He brought the pearl closer in his hand to the front of the cave so he could look at it more clearly.
It was so pretty.
It was quite a big pearl,
Bigger than any pearl he'd ever seen.
And then he thought about where pearls come from.
And then he thought,
Well,
If this pearl is this big,
How big was the clamshell or the oyster shell that it came from?
It had to be enormous.
And then he thought about the mermaid that he painted last week.
The mermaid could have lived in a shell that big.
He'd seen mermaids in like oyster shells before,
Looking all pretty and glamorous.
Maybe his mermaid lived in that shell.
And maybe his mermaid had left the pearl inside of the mountain.
Oh,
That was a bit far-fetched,
He thought,
But there was a connection somehow.
He could feel it.
Like,
Why would he have all of these gems and treasures inside of his mind,
Especially the pearl?
And also,
Really like mermaids.
You know,
They're both from the ocean,
He thought.
It's definitely connected.
He was staring down at the pearl.
And then without even thinking,
He brought his hand outside of the cave into real world,
Into his space in the bathtub.
And the pearl just dissolved into water with a white,
Creamy tinge shimmering in the palm of his hand.
There goes the pearl.
Mum really would have liked that pearl.
He was sad for a minute,
But then he realised if he gave his mum a pearl,
She would want to know where the pearl was from.
And then his magical paints would not be just his knowledge.
He would have to tell his mum as well.
And there's nothing wrong with telling your mum.
You should really tell your mum everything.
But at the same time,
He wasn't quite sure how to tell her at the moment that he had a set of magical paints that made everything come real that his grandma bought him.
Sounded a bit nuts,
He thought.
And also at this point,
He wasn't sure if he was nuts.
Was he nuts or did he just have a really good imagination?
Yes,
He had a really good imagination.
But still.
Jack reached his head back into the cave and rummaged through all of the different stones.
He found another pearl.
It was smaller.
It wasn't as big.
But when he brought it out of the cave once again,
This time he looked at it and he said,
Don't disappear,
Don't disappear,
Don't disappear.
The pearl melted and disappeared.
Jack realised that maybe his magic was just for him.
It was fleeting.
Like rain.
Or like snow.
Or maybe like Christmas,
He thought.
Things that were awesome but weren't constant.
That was this magic.
His magic was awesome but it wasn't constant.
Jack watched as all of the mountains started to dissolve and fall drip by drip into the bathtub.
And the greys and the greens dissolved into the dirty water down below.
The water was a terrible colour.
He literally felt like he was laying in a puddle of mud and dirt.
Pretty cool actually.
How often do you get to do this,
He thought.
He splashed around in it for a bit longer.
And then eventually Jack got out and dried off.
Put on his sweatpants and a t-shirt.
And went downstairs for something to eat.
Because he was starving.
And that was that.
The end.
