Being a kid.
Kids don’t have all of these experience related opinions, fears, anxieties, misconceptions, facts, and emotional hardening that adults get.
Kids see magic in the world until they get around 17 or 18. Mostly when they are 7 through 12. They can look at water in a ditch and not see dirty runoff, snakes, bugs, mud, stink, potential pollution and stuff, but see a great river to float toy boats on, build dirt dams across, new land to explore, hiding places for playing cowboys and Indians, neat places to find cool frogs, minnows and colorful clay. A whittle stick in the shape of a crude boat, a twig for a mast and an impaled leaf for a sail becomes a ship of the line, exploring enemy territory, or a 4 master, battling high seas and running aground on some deserted island.
A kid looks at the skies and sees pretty colors, puffy clouds and regardless of education, might wonder if clouds are soft like that pillow stuffing Mom buys to put in cushions. Dragonflies are all glittery, colorful, fun and friendly, natures insect helicopters who will land on one’s finger and study one and to a kid, it could be an alien trying to communicate, a secret friend, an intelligent insect, a play sign from some mystic being during an adventure game where they are stalking dragons and evil doers.
A kid trusts explicitly in Mom and dad to keep anything nasty away, to provide him with all things good, like food, clothing, shelter and protection and usually figures that they can handle anything which comes up.
He sees others in simple terms of friend or not friend, he doesn’t care how a movie was made, just that it was fantastic and he wishes he could go to such a place and do such things. A kid sees the world with bright eyes, like a big city is all color and wonder and excitement with strange and curious people, sometimes it’s deliciously scary, sometimes not. He doesn’t worry about the crime, pollution, road rage, AIDS, big corporate influence, political wards, police corruption or racism.
A mall is a magical castle of wonder, color, sound and smell that he would love to live in or be able to have all to himself, with selected friends, of course. A pencil becomes a space ship or a cannon, a patch of dirt and some toys becomes a construction site, battle ground, alien land, or a last stand against primitive hostiles. A tree becomes a Most Favored Place to climb and sit among the branches, dreaming, or a crudely erected tree fort, which becomes a space ship, an aircraft, a crows nest, a lonely outpost, or a fortress.
Things are big and wonderful. The mind is open and curious, absorbing information like a sponge. What adults say is always right because he hasn’t learned that they lie a lot yet. A kid isn’t yet all that interested in sex, but knows of the opposite sex as somewhat interesting.
When a kid does start feeling the urges of sex, his feelings and emotions are pure, unadulterated and strong, as yet unblemished by games, lies, hurts and confusing laws or roles.
A kid is young so his body is full of energy, heals quickly, seems never to tire, looks good, feels good, and he/she can eat anything which will not eat him/her first and not put on an ounce of fat. Simple things give a kid pleasure like sweet wax lips, flavor straws, bubble gum, glittery wrapping paper, smooth stones, bright pieces of worn glass, bits of colored cellophane, and cheap water paints.
A kid can enjoy stomping barefoot in sticky mud, revel in it squishing up between the toes, enjoy the sensation on the soles of the feet and not worry about dirt, germs, time, disease or what others might think. An ice cold sweet soda dredged up from a bucket of ice and enjoyed on a hot summer day under a shady tree his heaven. He won’t think about stocks, bills, drugs, business politics, cheating, smoking, personal interactions, styles or food prices, but will enjoy every molecule of taste in his cold root beer while smelling the sun warmed grass, the fragrance of the tree he leans against, the distant drone of an aircraft and the music of the birds while admiring butterflies bouncing from colorful flower to colorful flower.
A kid will have strong teeth and bones, no ulcers, tumors, smokers cough, cataracts, poor joints, piles, hemorrhoids, arthritic fingers, hammer toes, bunions, corns or nervous ticks. He will find no pleasure in ‘All is quiet on the Western Front’ but will read and reread his favorite comic books. He will know of good and bad, but not of the vast gray area in-between.
A child is innocent, until such time as he/she becomes aware that they are responsible for their own actions, and then begins the long, painful climb into confusing, complicated, ever-working, ever struggling, ever increasing awareness into adulthood.
He/she will retain much of the innocence through most of his/her 20s, when he/she figures that the world is theirs, they make changes, their names will go up in lights and down in print, and they have confidence, determination, energy, and resiliency along with a firm belief that they are immortal. They wear shining armor.
By the late 20s, battle scars start to slow them down. By their 30s, their glands no longer run their lives and a new, unwelcome maturity sets in. They have been battered beaten, defeated, some dreams and illusions shattered, have had some triumphs, some of which came at great cost, and have emerged, armor dented and tarnished, wiser, perhaps happier, but with much of the innocence and wonder gone forever and by then they are considering their own eventual mortality.
They see their parents in a new light, have absorbed the worries of the world, know that only they can protect themselves, possibly faced with the staggering implications of being a parent, sizing up people no longer as friend or not friend, but various levels of friend, various levels of foe and enemy.
When they look at the sky, they see air pollution, global warming, changing weather, too many aircraft, and when they look in a ditch, they see muck, disease, snakes, broken glass, weeds, thorny vines, bugs and industrial waste.
So it is at childhood’s end.
