Wednesday Writing Assignment
Often in childhood we will experience something that seems magical, wondrous, perhaps even too good to be true. Reflecting on it as adults (or even experiencing it again), we see its mundanity, its being nothing particularly special after all. Write about a moment of childhood wonder. What mesmerized you? What do you think of it now?
posted by Eric @ 8:07 AM
9 Comments:
Rainbows have always been magical to me. They still are. Dull dissertations on prisms have not dampened them.
One time, during a college break, Lah and I were wandering around coastal Massachusetts, as we were wont to do. One rainy afternoon, after a meeting with Pia the psychic and a lunch of Chinese food, we drove along the waterfront in Hull. Lah stopped the car at the beach and we emerged to stretch our legs during a break in the rain. Soon enough it started pouring down again. As we walked back toward the car, one of us--I can't remember which--looked back at the ocean for a second. There, over the grey Atlantic, stretched a double rainbow, bright as you can imagine, one arch sailing over the other.
Cotton candy. Not that fake stuff that you can get in a bag (!!), but the real stuff, made in a big tub of whirling hot air. (Some would argue that that's a description of me, except without the sweetness.) I still love the stuff, when I can get it, but I refuse the stuff that has the texture of insulation.
the cotton candy was me, btw; i don't always remember to sign, and i keep refusing to sign up w/ blogger.
carla
When I was first taken to a library, probably at age three or so, I had a hard time grasping the central concept. They have all the books, and you can take them home? Whichever ones you want? And you don't have to bring them back for a long time?
A few years later I added another item to my catalogue of incredulity: it's all free?
Magical place, that library. And though I'm a jaded grown-up reader now, I have to say that it mostly still is. When I'm in the library and see a book I'd wanted to read but wasn't sure I wanted to buy, I often have a moment of disbelief: I really get to read this? No risk, no obligation?
Astonishing.
Yes! It was great! I think we went with Crazy Mike and his gf.
We should go back net time you visit.
Crazy Mike... those were good times, good times. What ever happened to him? I heard he went to clown college.
Don't know what happened to Crazy Mike...That's right, I probbaly told you that saga.
No, I am ignorant of the saga. I was just trying to sound in-the-know. So that you and Lah would be impressed by my social connections.
The wind rushed past my face, a lively breeze created by my own forward motion. Legs going up and down getting nowhere and yet powering the gravity defying centripetal forces, impossible science or magic beyond my comprehension. I thought back to how this started - just giving in, letting go, and trusting in the unknown. Now I'm nearly a block away from the cracks in the driveway, the tree I'm not yet able to climb in front of the house, and a friend or two who attended my launch. In seconds I've traveled untold distances that used to take minutes. The breeze, the unknowing, the freedom. Somehow I'm in complete control of this magic. Starting to get further away from home than is comfortable, I slow, using my unexperienced grip I turn and head back hoping for a successful landing, knowing that having reached this point I will never forget how to do it again.
- Ben
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