design / host
Still a child, just taller
2001-08-20 @ 12:00 a.m.
Kids were playing the other day outside along the block, stealing my mind and dragging my attention away from the book I was trying to read. In trying to escape the cluttered world that makes up "inside" I traveled to a completely different place seprate from where I wanted to be. Instead of getting caught up in the stories of the novel I'd hoped to be immersed in, I was immediately drawn into remembrance of childhood. I, like most children, had those neighborhood friends with whom you'd spend every summer day playing under trees and creating make-believe games. Or simply chasing each other along the sidewalk, leery of cracks. The playmates my brother and I had were rather eccentric- Natalie and Josh, who belonged to a large family and homeschooled by their parents, a strict and religious mother and father. The family consisted of nine children... I think that was the count the number of children had reached just before they moved. I can't remember all the children's names and can't remember the ratio of boy to girl but I do know that the girls did out weigh the boys. But I can still remember what they looked like. And I remember that Natalie was always in trouble for something very trivial. One time in the fall, after the leaves had fallen, and somewhere in the ages of five or six, Josh tried to make my brother believe I had been kidnapped after covering me head to toe in a pile of wet leaves. My brother cried and became scared. After listening to Josh "lay it on thick" I felt guilty for being part of a stupid prank that kids our age were too young to comprehend and understand. I remember my brother calling out my name inbetween scared, uncertain whines, but I don't remember how long it took for me to finally pop out from underneath the leaves.
Somewhere along the line, I didn't see Natalie and Josh as much. At this point I had reached the age of eight or nine, and had discovered the word "popular" (as much as an eight or nine year old can comprehend the meaning of the word) along with a number of different kids who resided on my block. Even at a young age I felt pressured to divide my time between two groups of friends who could never seem to come together. Natalie and Josh were considered unacceptable by the other group I had started to play with and I just could not seem to bring either set of kids to like the other. This is also the point in time when my brother stopped playing with me, and went off into his own little world of bigger kids and things I wouldn't come to understand for some time yet. Sometimes I felt lost without him.
It wasn't always that way- when I was a little younger. There were days when my mother and I would sit out in the garden, she collecting strawberries and me standing, bowl in hand, ready for the next group of red fruit. Or my brother and I would sit on the porch, him playing with hot wheel cars and I playing with dolls (when I wasn't in my tomboy stage). I can still remember the sound of those tin cars crashing and the scrapes along the plastice face of the doll and the gray, dirtied hands. My mother would sometimes walk us to 7-11 or Walgreens where we'd have the option of choosing on candy treat of our liking. There were days of play grounds, slip-and-slides and the plastic pool with the whales and flamingos all around the side. The days where my mom would sit reading a novel on the porch while I TRIED reading something I could find. If it was too hard I'd just make up the story. And then there was the time when dad would come home and teach my brother and I how to swing a bat or how to throw the ball up in the air and smack it. I was never very good at that.
This prompts me to think about the way children exist today. It seems that kids are in such a hurry to grow-up. Twelve-years-old suddenly isn't as innocent. More children seem to know the meaning of swear words. Even the clothes are just a little more grown up.
So I sat- watching this group of neighborhood friends, all different ages but no older than seven, play. They were running, looking as though they were in a game of pretend. Half wishing I were that age again, half glad that I was merely a spectator, but still feeling grown and older than I should be. After a time, a young girl was lost from the bunch- ah, a father retrieving his daughter for a lunch break. I hated that- being called away from play to surrender to PB&J sandwhiches, juice boxes, and an apple. Let the girl play- she's going to leave pretend behind her one day and soon she'll be saying "I remember" and "it used to be".
"I like the bed I'm sleepin' in/ just like me it's broken in/ it's not old, just older" ~Bon Jovi