Permission Slip

Surprising smiles and creativity in a police station waiting room

I want to share a memory from a waiting room, where there was a strange kind of mundane magic at play. Or maybe I was just enjoying a chance to get out of the house, as this happened one month after my second child was born, a month spent at home in these dark winter months, mostly just sitting with the baby, breastfeeding in the rocking chair. I’m sitting there now, with my baby sleeping in my lap as I try to finalize this post on my phone. I will probably not show up often here on Substack during this year, when this little new human and their slightly larger sibling are my main focus. But I wanted to check in to share this little story, from a waiting room in the police station. So here it is.

Me and my family spent half a day at the police station to renew our child's passport. While waiting, my partner was rocking the baby (who was thankfully sleeping) while me and our older child drew cars on the blank backside of police station documents: permission slips where the other parent (if parents are unmarried) has to sign that they give their permission to apply for a passport for the child.

Someone else had started drawing on these documents. Someone else had been there before us, and been as bored as we were, so they had started drawing on these official documents that were lying around at the police station.

I wouldn't have dared to take those permission slips so neatly placed on the wall, just to draw on them because I was bored. But because they were already on the table, they were free to be used.

The someone who had taken those papers had drawn some faces and animals on them, but me and my son continued it with cars, those being more to my child's liking. And each car was being driven by a ghost. Or there were whole ghost families in the cars (my child also likes ghosts).

I looked around the waiting room. People were bored, waiting for bureaucracy to turn its big, rusty wheels. At one point there were no police administrators in any of the booths and time seemed to have stopped. The ghosts in the cars in our drawing seemed symbolic of something deeper. Here we were, inside of this ghost of a system, or were we the ghosts?

I noticed an elderly man was smiling at me and my child drawing on the permission slips. Then I noticed another, an older lady also looking at us and smiling. I hope I smiled back but I was probably actually too shy to do so. And yet they kept smiling. And suddenly the room felt lighter. They reminded me that this was just another level. Just part of this game of life. No need to take it so seriously. And if they could smile in this boring waiting room under the fluorescent light, maybe I could find something to appreciate too, even in this dull moment. I stopped for a moment and felt something move through me. An understanding deep and meaningful, but also simple and mundane:

This is it.

This is life.

This is where the magic happens.

In each moment there is the option to choose joy. To choose a smile.

Maybe it feels farther away sometimes. But it is there. Hidden behind the illusions of boring, mundane reality.

And we drew more cars on the permission slip. And the ghosts were smiling and waving at each other. I always draw happy ghosts. I don't know why.

Finally the police administrators came back to their booths and we got to drop off the permission slip we had needed to add to the passport application (not the one with the ghost cars, but the one where my child’s father had signed his name to allow for the renewal of our child’s passport. A little extra hoop to jump through since we're not married). The police who accepted the application smiled at me and this time, I smiled back.

As we went towards the door, my child pressed the door button five times. I tried stopping him, telling him once is enough. At that, the old man that had been smiling at us, started outright laughing. I didn’t exactly understand why he was laughing but couldn't help but smile a bit too. I think he just enjoyed the entertainment we provided, in that boring waiting room. And I was actually very happy to provide it.

When we came back home, my child wanted to continue our ghost car drawing on the permission slip (upon their request, I had brought it home with me). And again something moved through me: without that time waiting, we wouldn't have this drawing or the chance to continue it now.

But this time my child didn't want to draw cars or ghosts, but pressed the pencil so hard that that small holes were made through the paper. I was about to tell them not to break it, but stopped myself. Why? Why could my child not break the permission slip? Because it had been an official document? Or because I was an adult who had learned "the right way to draw" was without making holes, and now I had to impose that on him as well? Why?

Quickly, I changed my mind. Of course my child could make holes through the paper. So I told him "cool holes!" instead. And told him that this seemed to be an interesting, experimental approach to drawing.

Another symbol enters my mind. The police permission slip with kids drawings and holes.

Transmutation through play.

Boring bureaucratic documents turned to canvases for joy - a conceptual work of art in its own right.

Children’s creativity knows an art of fearless destruction that I have forgotten.

Children innately know that you don’t need a permission slip to play. To experiment. Or to enjoy.

I had forgotten this. But I'm relearning more every day.

In time, the children too will grow up and forget that you can make holes through the paper.

And when they are the adults, it is time for them to relearn, the way that I’m doing now.

But for now, we can exist in a shared moment, where we both know that you don’t need a permission slip to play.

And I wanted to remind you of this too.