Heidi brought the girls in to my work last week – their first visit to see where I am all day. Just out of the lift we met Sally, who was choosing a chocolate bar from the huge stash of junk food we have for sale on our floor, much to the girls’ delight. I introduced the girls by name after taking a quick look at them first, and got them mixed up all the same (Heidi wasn’t impressed). Sally has twin sisters who are only fifteen months older than her. She told the girls that her sisters weren’t identical. They stared back, mute.
Rhea and Lara ate the pastries I bought them then I introduced them and Heidi to the rest of my team. Jo, Alice and Tania were all happy to meet them, and Simon too. Sally showed them the 20cm squared zen sculpture she has beside her desk containing sand, pebbles and a rake and I asked if they could play with it in my office. That kept them very busy while I chatted to Heidi about her impending IVF process. She also told me loudly that there was no way she could work in an office building like mine all day, she would find it stifling.
Lara and Rhea looked at the school photos of themselves on my desk, the pink, purple, yellow and grey paintings they had done in pre-school and the densely-filled out white board containing the fruits of some brainstorm sessions I had had with my team. They have seen photos of these whiteboard scrawls amongst the photos on my phone, so this brought those photos to life.
After a while I needed to get some work done so I suggested that they finish up with the raking and return the sand sculpture to Sally. Lara asked if she could take it back and carried it very carefully out of my office towards Sally’s desk over by the window. Halfway there she stopped as Jo offered to lift it up for her and then another colleague from a nearby team, Saanvi, also came over to say hello. I was watching Lara at this point but I don’t know what happened – she juggled the sculpture then time stood still for a moment and it fell to the ground, sand and pebbles everywhere. I couldn’t help saying ‘oh no!’ in horror while everyone else nearby scrambled to help and assure Lara that it was absolutely no problem at all. Sally wasn’t at her desk and I was nervous as to what her reaction would be.
‘I’ve been warned not to approach the bay’ she said, coming up behind us after a couple of minutes while we were still scraping the sand off the carpet with some plastic office sleeves. ‘It will be even better with some dust from the carpet on it,’ she added. Rhea and Lara picked up the stones and busily packed them in the box too, reassured by my colleagues’ reaction.
We picked up enough sand to cover the box almost as it had been before and the girls raked it over a bit more. They skipped out with Heidi, leaving a smear of sand on the carpet which the cleaners removed overnight.
I’m glad that the girls will be able to imagine where I am if I talk to them from work in future, and they were so happy to meet some of the people I work with. It was a memorable visit.
