Many, many times we hear adults say that they wish they could re-experience the joy, enthusiasm, and innocence of childhood. It is easy to forget that childhood is often a place of painful inhibition and insecurity, a walking-on-eggshells game of trying to provide the “correct” emotional response in the landmine world of adults. It is not always the carefree days we prefer to harken back to.
But what if adults made a conscious effort to enjoy those very things which brought pleasure and joy in childhood? What if we felt free to eat cookies – or cookie batter – without apologies and excuses? What if adults felt free to roll down hills, spin until dizzy, howl at the moon with our dogs, or have soft-serve ice cream for dinner on a summer evening?
What if otherwise creative adults stopped making excuses for not writing, painting, singing, or dancing? What if we stopped banishing those delights to our past as things that we “used to do?” What if ignored the fear of being judged and stopped hiding behind Perfectionism long enough to send a bit of art (a poem, a song sung out loud, a photograph) out into the world? Would this sharing help others be less afraid to share poetry, even if they’re not T.S. Eliot, a painting if they’re not Picasso, or a photograph if they’re not Dorothea Lange?
What if those who read this share their unique art with the world, and report back on the joy and amusement that has been added to the world?
8 comments:
cookie dough!
Remember our games of catch with cookie dough, out on the porch at 139?
nice job on the blog!
love the ice cream!
Remember how we cracked a window with that cookie dough, and Deb got blamed somehow? Then we got Bec to eat it? Some of the best times of our childhood were out on that porch which, looking back, our parents used as a sort of kennel...
Wait a minute...I don't remember you making me eat glass-infused cookie dough!
Now Meliss can kennel HER kids on that porch (can I bring mine over too!?).
I actually do try to live my life with some of my childlike enthusiasm exuding out into the world for all to see. Alas, I think some people judge me negatively for it. Know what I say to them? "Nya nya nya nya nyaaaa!"
Bec, Don't forget to call them "stinkyfaces" while you're at it. BTW, the dough just cracked the window (Deb really did do it)so there was no broken glass. She then shoved the ball of dough in some nasty webby corner. She and Melissa found it later and gave it to you. I only heard about it later.
I laughed at the "kennel" metaphor, Rach.
Welcome to my family, Rich! Now picture more of them, all aroudn the same table, strolling down Memory Lane! Good times.
okay, was that before or after we gave Rebecca the "aged" pizza from behind the bar in your cellar?
..and let's not forget the devil dog with tooth paste! yuck!
Remember the flower swing that we used to have on the porch? It went well with the caterpillar footstool, I suppose.
Melissa, I love you, man!
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