Through the Eyes of a Child

One of the most endearing aspects of children is their dependency on their parents and adults. They actually – unlike older kids and adults – love to be told what to do, where to go, when to get up, what to wear, etc. Everything is new to them – the world is full of wonder: from a dandelion blossoming in the springtime sun, to the dandelion’s puffball floating in the air, to a bubble bursting, to the sound of the wind rustling the trees – everything catches their attention. And should a child find something fun, they will do it over and over and over again – long after older children and adults have tired of it. Children really are little miracles – what the world does to them over time is unfortunate. It’s too bad we can’t carry some of that innocence and wonder throughout our lives. I often ponder if the world wasn’t so structured, so technological, so complex, if adults wouldn’t be a little bit more like children.

I guess when I think about it, adults do have some childlike qualities – but the innocence is definitely missing. Adults rarely think about the end of their lives – most of us pretend we have an unlimited amount of time so most of us waste an awful lot of it. We invent ways to kill time – to pass time – to amuse ourselves with our vacant hours. Sometimes this leads to productive and educational pursuits and sometimes this leads us to do things we’re not so proud of; sometimes idle time leads some to do things that ruin their lives.

Most of us don’t have the wherewithal to do as we please all of the time. We have to work, some of us have young children to care for, and some have other obligations which take up most of their time. The rich have more free time – which leads to adults being more like children – although their pursuits are usually much less innocent.

As for me, I’m somewhere in between the child and the man – I’ve found myself drifting off into a childhood long since past – reliving my days on the baseball diamond, coming home and drinking Kool-Aid, watching TV and going to bed when my parents told me to – a small boy with big dreams of being a professional baseball player and having my picture on a baseball card.

I relive warm spring and summer nights, I can smell the wind blowing in from Sandusky Bay and feel my grandfather’s rough hand in mine -walking side by side talking about everything and yet talking about nothing at all. I can relive those moments is such rich detail that I am almost physically transported back to that time and that place, and for those magical moments my grandfather is as alive as he ever was and I am a little boy again – trusting and innocent, walking beside my hero, going wherever he takes me — and loving every minute of it.

Some of my reflections are so real they cause me to lose my breath. I’m startled when I realize I’ve been so deeply immersed in thought, temporarily mesmerized. I not only think I’m somewhere else in time, I am somewhere else in time. The smells, the sounds, the feeling of the wind on my skin, the taste of the strawberry ice cream, the glint of the setting sun reflecting off the bay – all too real. Sometimes it is so real that I shudder when I pull myself up from those dreamy thoughts and realign myself to the present, with all its problems and all its complications and all its responsibilities; sometimes the flood of reality chases me back again and again to simpler times, more innocent times and more beautiful and peaceful places.

Sometimes I wonder if having the ability to see things in such detail and to be able to instantaneously travel back to a childhood buried under so many todays and tomorrows is a blessing or a curse. I can think a word and from that word can grow beautiful or horrific images. Some of the images that grow from a word or a phrase can be so startling, so real, and so powerful that I have to actually break off those thoughts and force myself back to the present. I wonder if other people see things as I do. I wonder if they do, do they feel blessed or cursed?

It is not only the past I can see in great detail, I can see the future too. Unlike the past, however, whatever I see in the future is an odd stew of the present mixed with what I desire, and stirred and simmered with what will probably be and what is unlikely to be – and seasoned well with what I want to be. I can savor those scenes of the future conjured up by my mind as entirely as I can those now-frozen memories of what once was. As I grow older I often find it becomes more and more difficult to stay in the present, with the long past pulling me back and ever-shortening future pulling me forward.

I pine for my lost innocence. I think that’s why I love children so much. In children I can find that lost innocence that will never belong to me again. I can communicate with children because the child inside this man lives on, the child inside never really left me.

I don’t know what others think or how others see things in their minds. I don’t know if words or phrases spawn entire scenes or entire worlds in other peoples’ minds. I only know my mind. In a way we’re all always alone with our thoughts. We can never know what happens inside another’s mind, we can only know what happens within our own mind. We’re trapped inside ourselves and we can never let someone really come inside. We can only hope that we find someone we love so much that the isolation and loneliness are eased because we can share our darkest or most beautiful thoughts, our deepest fears and our most intense desires, with someone we love. It makes the isolation of our thoughts much easier to endure;

Sometimes I feel blessed that I am able to communicate some of the things that go on in my mind through my words and I can share some of my thoughts with others. It must be a savage loneliness that haunts those who don’t have the ability to communicate the thoughts, the dreams, the fears, the desires, and the hopes that go on within their minds.

I’m a lucky man to have kept the child inside alive and to dream the dreams that seem so real – to go back in time and walk again and relive some of those wonderful spring and summer days – walking along a tree-lined street, holding my grandfather’s hand and knowing that everything is right in my world.