She looked at me today. With expectant eyes. The kind of eyes you do not ignore.

She was cutting things out of black paper. It is her favorite color to use these days. And she wanted to make something, but could not get the scissors to cooperate.

"Square," she said. So I cut a square. Then she asked me to cut again, using words I couldn't distinguish. She was so serious... so expectant. After a couple of tries she said "X".

But I couldn't tell what she wanted. Or needed. So I cut an X out of a square piece of paper. She studied it, but you could tell it wasn't enough. "Square. Square. SQUARE."

I tried to cut more squares, but it wasn't right. She kept taking my hand, placing the scissors in it, and begging for me to cut more. Then, out of frustration, she started saying every word she knew. In rapid succession. Trying, so desperately, to get me to hear her vision. To communicate her intent. But she was trapped. And I was unable to read her mind.

We sat for a while longer. I would cut, and she would scream "NO!". Then she looked at the X that I cut out earlier. She started making a box around the X. She cut little scraps of paper, and glued them together, forming the beginnings of a square. At last, I figured out what she wanted.
I cut out a square, with the shape of an X in the middle. I gave it to her. She studied it, then flickered her hands over the shape to take it in. She looked at me, then looked at the shape. Then she became frustrated with the shape she had fashioned earlier.

I took another square, and began folding it to recreate the shape. Much like you would fold paper and create a snowflake when you were a child. I made the lines on the paper, and showed her where to cut. Together, she and I created another square. With an X. Again, she placed he shape on the table. She flickered her hands over her eyes. Then she looked at me. Sideways. And smiled. Then she became lost in her own universe.

This is what my days are like. I can see into the minds of my children. I can see them desperately, desperately trying to communicate with the outside world. I can see how important it is for them to get their point of view across. But they are trapped in a world with little language, and I am trapped in a world with too many guesses and to many divergent ideas. I will never, ever know why that square with an X meant so much to her today. Why she simply had to have it. Why she spent well over 30 minutes trying to get me to come into her world, into her ideas. All I know is that it was so incredibly important to her, and through some miracle I was able to figure out the mystery.

I just wish our universes would collide more often. I feel so lonely on the outside. I can only imagine how they feel on the inside.