To Be A Child Again

There would be so many wonderful things about being a child again.

What age would I pick?  10? 11?  Some point at which I had achieve a certain degree of physical coordination, large and small.  Sufficient to climb trees and ride a bike. Enough to hike a mountain, to whittle a stick; to ford a stream while looking for tiny fishes or quickly-disappearing frogs; to carry a bucket of water at the beach to fill the moat around a sandcastle. To 'pump' myself high on the swings of the swingset and then fling myself off into the air, aiming for the pile of carefully-raked fall leaves below.  To be able to crawl through small spaces when exploring, and yet to also be able to reach that higher branch to pull myself up.

It would be an ideal age, that time when scraped knees were interesting and bandages were essentially curative.  When glasses were unnecessary to spot that woolly-bear caterpillar or the bud of a wild strawberry, even at a distance.  When nothing hurt on a daily basis.  When I could eat as much or as little as I liked, when there were no migraine triggers or concerns about body size or shape.  A time before puberty caused inconvenient and uncomfortable changes to the physical machinery. When I could skip or run, just for the sheer pleasure of being able to do so.

Responsibilities are few at such an age.  I would have solely to do my schoolwork and my chores.  That would be all.  No need to fret about a job or bills. No need to understand the health care policy. Someone else would take care of all of the shopping and of meal preparation and laundry. Someone else would drive me where I needed to go.  Easy-peasy.

I could play with toys for hours. Color with crayons. Sit in a tree and read a book.  Pretend to fish over the front hall banister.  Wear whatever amalgam of clothing I would like in the daytime -- for fashion and brand names would be unimportant -- and sport pajamas with feet at night. Leave cookies and milk out for Santa, even though I didn't necessarily believe in Santa. Sing loudly and unabashedly.  Make snow angels.

There would be magic in finding a smooth stone or a nearly-perfectly symmetrical chestnut.

Everything could be made into an adventure.

There would be only one drawback:  the other children. Well, two drawbacks: the other children, and the adults who interacted with me and the other children.

I would have to navigate the intricacies surrounding social relationships and reciprocity (or lack thereof).  If little Kellie didn't extend an invitation to her birthday party, I would need to understand why I was told not to invite Kellie to my party, either. Why not? What did it matter, if I played with Kellie on occasion and would enjoy having Kellie there?  And why was I not allowed to play with Beth who lived next door?  She was a year or two younger than I, but we still both liked Colorforms.  And what was wrong with the fact that Mary had CCD on Mondays, other than the fact that I could not play with her after school that day? So many questions, for which there were no answers.

I would have to figure out why my classmate Eloise decided to fill my school shoes with glue while everyone was outside in their winter boots for recess.  And I would need again to learn to reject the advice of an adult who, upon learning about the glue escapades, instructed me to place prank phone calls to Eloise to say "I know what you did and I'm going to tell" and then hang up.  No.

If I set up a 'fix-it' shop in the corner of the third grade classroom with my classmate Joseph, where we would use tape or other means to mend a torn page of a book or other tiny problems, I would once more need to remain calm when looking at the triumphantly hostile face of another classmate who broke a pencil in two, with shreds of wood and yellow paint dropping to the ground, and challenged me to repair it.

I would have to figure out why the teacher always called on Nanette first, especially when Nanette sat up extra prim and proper with a sweet smile across her face, and why my attempts to do the same would never yield the same result. I would have to understand why that pack of kids threw snowballs at me because they thought I was my brother.  I would be reminded that I was being sent to speech therapy and instructed to hold a file card between my closed lips, in order to ensure that I could close my lips around my buck teeth so that my peers would not make fun of me.

Those were the hard parts of being a child.

If I were a child again, I would select the individuals around me ever so carefully. The adults would be benign, muffled voices in the background, much like the teacher in a Charlie Brown holiday special.  For my companion(s), I would pick someone like the boy whose name I've long forgotten, whom I met in summer camp when I was a tiny wee thing.  We spent hours playing in the shade of the tree near the monkey bars, pretending that we were heroic dogs who were on an outer-space mission.  We would understand one another perfectly, somehow, and there would be not an ounce of sarcasm or criticism or mind-game.  Such would be the best childhood companion - someone in front of whom I could set my imagination free without fear of being judged, and for whom I would return that kindness.  Together, we could be canine astronauts all day and into the evening, until the sun went down and the lightning-bugs began to twinkle.

That would be excellent, indeed.