Being a Kid...

Quarter till midnight and just got home from a 16 hour workday (6 hours of it was driving – which you know I LOVE – and maybe 2 of that making phone calls – woohoo!), and sitting down to go over the 15 or so e-mails that came in since I left my last meeting place and organize things for tomorrow, when I finally just say ‘F*** it’. Its been a very weird and tiring week with random shit happening all over the place – some good, some not so great but could have been much worse. And its only Wednesday – or I guess almost Thursday early morning. Time to trudge off to bed and start fresh tomorrow, I figured.

Then the most amazing thing happened. When I took Dakota out I was pondering all the week’s meant and all the work that tomorrow will bring, the smell of fresh jasmine reached me and stopped me dead in my tracks. And in the blink of an eye, I’m wondering when we all stop being kids and marvelling at the simplest of things, and when I did so – I guess it happens in both big and little chunks as we figure out the world, and then moreso I suppose as we figure out there’s no figuring out the world. I don’t think the inner child ever goes away – he just busies himself with all the seemingly “important” stuff and the “fun” and “amazing” and “holy shit did you see THAT!?) stuff kind of gets displaced, slinking off to a corner to gather dust.

If I could bottle both the smell and experience of my encounter with the jasmine tonight, sky black and crickets chirping, I’d do it and become rich beyond my wildest dreams. God I wish I could. It was awesome.

Of course, it wouldn’t remind everyone of being a kid burying himself in that endless sea of stark white and bright, bright purple lilac bushes. Knowing no one would or could find him if he didn’t want them to, and even then it would be a chore. Peeking out and thinking how the Maine sky was blacker than tar that August night with the stars just whiter than white, and a million of them. Wondering what that all looked like on the other side of the world, and what he looked like looking back at it, eyes big as saucers I suppose.

It probably wouldn’t remind everyone of letting go and having the vast tranquility of nature reveal itself – so silent on the one hand and bustling with the sounds of a crisp summer night on the other – ever-so-thankfully devoid of machines and people and tension and stress and winners and losers and good and bad, the soothing sound of salt water gently lapping the shore of that boyhood dream. A gazillion fireflies dancing the jig – obviously they hadn’t a care, they just flitted on with reckless abandon. Maybe they had to – who knew how long summer would last? Who ever does?

Or stopping to wonder a bit whether he’d always find that comfortable place if he wanted to… then wondering just a little how he’d find it when he really needed to, when he had to, ‘cause he’d already guessed that would prob’ly happen from time to time even though he didn’t want to believe it… And pondering whether he could or would show others the way to it when they needed it worse than he did – which he worried might happen some day – even though it was his place. If he only knew…

I don’t think everyone would feel that way, do you? But they might, if just for a moment. And if they did – hell, if I could – it would be priceless, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t it?

What a glorious feeling, being a child again. Even just in that moment. However fleeting.