The Game Of Signs

It's hard to remember now who taught me to play the game of signs. It may have been my sister, who - being annoyed with my childish pleas for attention - told me to go outside and look until I found something. Then again, my cousins would also play this game when they'd run out of other things to do. Since we'd all had the sort of parents who tended to give us withering looks and tell us to entertain ourselves whenever we complained of boredom, it may have emerged out of sheer necessity. 

At any rate, being much younger than my siblings and there being no other kids in the neighborhood to play with, the game of signs became the solitary child's treasure hunt.

It's easy. First find an object. Any old object will do, as long as it catches your attention. Take this leaf, for example:

Which way is is pointing? Well, go that way. Keep on going until you find something.

Ah, here's a renegade marigold, growing out of place. How many petals does it have? There's five, so walk five paces (or five feet, whatever works). In this case, to the shrubbery, where a butterfly flits among the blossoms.

Following the butterfly (he was too quick to photograph, so you'll just have to trust me on this) leads us to a couple of twigs shaped  sort of like a "t"...

What begins with the letter t? Tree, of course, so we must head over to the biggest tree in the garden and see what we find.

A feather, hiding in a crevice. Feathers mean birds, and the place to look for birds is a birdhouse.

In the grass beneath the birdhouse tree, there's a lost penny. Maybe that's our treasure? Or perhaps not. If it's heads, we stop. If it's tails, we'll go on.

Tails. So we must continue, but a nearby rock helpfully points out the direction...

 where we find a heap of colored glass baubles. That fits my definition of treasure. Score!

Though when my five year-old plays this, his usual definition of treasure is bugs. Well, to each his own. You can find all sorts of things, when you play the game of signs.

What this is, really,  is just some imagination and playing close attention to things, and when you pay attention, you are bound to find something.

 It's one of life's little miracles.