youth

I said to myself: three days

and you'll be seven years old.

I was saying it to stop

the sensation of falling off

the round, turning world

into cold, blue-black space. 

-"The Waiting Room", Bishop

I think it's been the combo of being outside in terrific fall weather plus reading some amazing Elizabeth Bishop poems that has made me think about childhood. I miss the days when my brother & I could spend whole afternoons building mountains of leaves & creating new worlds & exploring the yard.  I miss being dazzled at the little details of a small snack or an earthworm or the branches of that apple tree I called my own.  I miss when Taylor & I would spend hours writing little stories - his were always adventure/science fiction & mine always had a protagonist identical to me in every way, except her name was Kimberly and she usually had magic powers or was friends with ghosts.  I miss eating tomatoes right from the ground in Granny & Dado's garden.  I miss the thrill of standing on the fence & watching the horses they sometimes kept.  I miss playing make-believe.  

There is something so beautiful about a child's perspective of the world. When I was little, I felt like I could reach & reach & r e a c h and never find an end.  I think a tragedy of getting older is thinking that we can put words to the universe & close it off & make it small.  But when we are young, there is this incredible self-satisfaction with just being in awe of all of it, an acceptance of knowing that our days are big & beautiful & beyond us.  It seems like with age comes this tendency to freak out over where we fit and how we define everything.  I think I'd prefer just to twirl with arms s t r e t c h e d wide and enjoy life like I did when I was little - when earth seemed dizzy but really sweet and colorful and endless.