Tara and I made up a story a few nights ago – about a Rat named Ratatouille. Now Ratatouille was a closet chef, until he discovers a little girl who was a fan of his pasta and came to his restaurant every week to enjoy his pasta. Every time she came she asked the restaurant manager to pass on her thanks to the Chef. Hoping that someday the Chef would come out of the kitchen (or rather closet), and thank her for her patronage.

But that never happened . So one day when she was eating at the restaurant she decided to sneak into the kitchen, on her way to the restroom. And so she did. When she entered the kitchen she saw a tall stool with a little rat on it. He was wearing a chefs hat mixing some ingredients in a pan. She fainted just looking at him.

The rat was so worried that he ran to help her and when she came back to conscious, she was delighted to see the celebrated Chef Ratatouille by her side. He checked in on her and offered her water. She looked at him and asked him why he never came out to meet her? She had been asking the restaurant manager for months now.

To which Ratatouille rattled some gibberish and said, but no one expects me to be a chef. So I hide and take pride in my work, and work behind the scenes. To which the little girl replied, “and no one expected me to sneak into the kitchen, but I did.” You should take pride in what you are, who you are, and be whatever you want to be. Let the world’s expectations catch up with your reality. And then onwards the Chef never hid his skills and his cooking from the rest of the world. All thanks to that little girl.

We used to make a lot of stories like these. But I always forgot to write them down. Today Tara asked me to write it down so I can tell it to her again. So here I am listening to my little missy. She knows how to make do things.

Lately I’ve been pairing up my two joys – writing and photography. I write a haiku and post it on one of my photographs. Pairing two joys into one. Multiplier effect 😊