Article by Make The Days Count Contributor Marie Monroe

 

One of my greatest pleasures has always been to sit high in the trees and watch the world.  Even in my adulthood I’ve managed this.  I’ve long since left the climbs and shimmies behind, but now I have a porch that serves the same purpose.  Even in the coldest times of the year I’m out on the 3^rd floor porch as much as possible. 

 

My porch and I live deep in a high density, very urban neighborhood that has activity at every hour:  pedestrians, neighbors, music floating from here and there and there … even wildlife.  I’ve had close encounters and long-term relationships with the likes of possums, raccoons, birds and squirrels on my porch.

 

Although I’ve lived in the city for many years, a good portion of my childhood was spent in the woods and creeks of Kentucky.  I took a pretty rough and tumble approach to getting to know the land and its creatures …

 

I could run across wet stones without losing my footing … 

I could climb up the side of a cliff instead of hiking the path … 

I could dangle upside down from a tree branch like a trapeze artist …

 

Magical Skills

These were all great and seemingly magical skills for a little girl.  I also had in my child heart and soul, a belief that I had certain magical powers, or at least had discovered some deep mysteries of the universe known only to a few.  Like Houdini’s magic, these mysteries and powers were (and still have to be!) closely guarded. It’s the function of a childhood pact I made with myself and feel, oddly, some deep commitment to still!  This is a fact that continues to delight and amaze me … it’s a pipeline to the magic and mystery of childhood.

 

Double Top Secret

Though many of my childhood mysteries are double top secret, I will disclose however, that I was especially proud of one of my double top secret powers: my ability to effectively protect myself from poisonous snakes!  There were plenty in my woods and creeks and those years of my life were peppered with constant words of caution from the adults.

 

Other children received the same warnings and many were fearful to join me in my jaunts, but I would coax my friends by sharing my secret of protection.  I instructed many children (and adults) in the art of projecting a protective force field that was impenetrable by any venomous creature.  The adults thought it was cute.  The children, however, believed in it, practiced it, attested to it and spread its wisdom to other children.

 

I never did encounter any poisonous snakes and though I rambled through dense and wild territory known to be dangerous, I navigated the rushing waters without washing away to New Orleans and I never fell off a cliff or out of a tree.  But barbed wire, well … that was another matter … we had many tussles.  And sorry Mr. Carter, I had to trespass to get to the mossy banks where the quartz was, but your barbed wire did take its toll out of my jeans and my hide.  So I think I paid for my passage.

 

The thing is, I learned a lot out there in my woods and creeks.  And while my territory was roughly the same every day, no two days were ever alike.  No twilight ever found me ready to go home.  No breakfast was ever short enough to get me out the door soon enough.  I felt incredibly rich.  The world was a treasure.  No, not just that.  The world was full of treasure and it multiplied infinitely.  I was on a journey of 100,000 miles within a 1 mile radius of home. 

 

Even then, I knew it was taking me somewhere important.  I wanted to have the mysteries of the world revealed to me.  I was stalking magic.  I was fortunate.  I found lots of both.

 

Child of the City

When I became a city child I remained fortunate.  The world continued to have infinite treasures and I learned new skills, found new magic and new mysteries.  I could, for example, balance my bike at any stop light without taking my feet off the pedals.  I could set out to raise funds for popsicles or soda, gathering up enough orphaned coins from the sidewalk on the way to buy them … the list is long and yes, the city’s childhood magic also remains carefully guarded.  In all these years I have never dismissed my childhood mysteries and magic.  I have treasured the experiences like I treasured my found treasure.

 

There have been times when I’ve mourned the loss of the childhood magic or what I thought was the loss of it.  Usually it has only been a temporary forgetting.  I’ve been fortunate enough to remember time and time again what my adventures felt like.

 

I would like to believe that I did not become one of those adults that believe those tricks of the child’s trade are simply cute.  I think I became an adult that still practices these tricks from time to time.  I think that’s why I porch sit so often … even in the winter, all bundled up against the wind. 

 

My Porch

The porch has been many things since I’ve lived here.  One exquisite summer night there was a gusty rain storm that transformed my perch into a granite boulder on the shore of Maine.  Oh, that was a glorious Kentucky rain …  And just recently, with ice stalactites hanging like winter’s bangs, I went off to my ancient cave home, sat by a wood fire wrapped in skins and watched the world from my safe haven.  That was a fine, fine Kentucky morning in the densest urban region of the state.  That was a happy childhood held over by popular demand…

 

I’ve found the equivalent of my porch at my work site.  I sit on a concrete coping and watch the railroad bridge.  Sometimes I am the train’s graffiti artist, a gifted teenaged artist in Chicago.  I feel his need to create.  I feel his excitement to have his work in a traveling show.  Sometimes I am the men who built that bridge in the Great Depression.  I feel their hope.  I feel their gratitude for good, hard work to do and a way to feed their families.

 

Today, like many days before, the doves were in the walnut tree in my backyard.  They’ve been there for maybe a month … sometimes one, two, or several doves … They just appeared one day, or perhaps, one day my journey finally took me to them.  It was a day on which I felt particularly lonely.  I missed my family and I couldn’t shake it.  Resolved to go back inside, feeling no magic in my usual magical place, I took one final look around. 

 

In the walnut tree sat six pairs of doves - each pair in its own space.  They all faced east, just as I did and they were perfectly still, calm and settled.  I had felt lucky to see a pair of doves before seeing these, but this seemed rare and amazing … a dozen doves! 

 

I sat with them for a while - watching, listening to that internal voice that’s been with me since my earliest explorations.  I listened for what this part of the world, this treasure, had to say to me. 

 

I found a lot on my travels that day when I took only 2 steps out my backdoor.  I found the beginnings of the road toward a meditation upon love, commitment and hope.  I found that some love is everlasting and that it is important to be with others who are like me and who love me. 

 

I found peace in their stillness and understood in my own heart why these creatures have come, in their perfect calm, to symbolize peace for us. 

 

That evening I told my story to a friend who grew up in the mountains of eastern Kentucky and shares my sense of prolonged childhood magic.  He chuckled on the other end of the phone as I exclaimed about the rare sighting. 

 

“Awww, Marie,” he said, “are you in love?  Have you been thinking about love?”  He teased me in his usual sibling-like affection, but he was dead on.  The doves had brought me many messages about love that day … romantic love, committed love, love of family and community and love of peace.

 

Remembering

The happy wild child that my friend still has inside him, and that internal voice that continues to speak to him of the world’s magic, are still very strong in him.  He is in many ways like me, still practicing the tricks of the child’s trade.  Steeped in the magic of his own continuing journey, he still hears and understands the treasures of this world and what lessons they have.  It comes naturally to him because he, too, practiced and practiced every day all day long.  When I talked with my friend I remembered some other things that were delivered in glittery pixie dust or perhaps the swashbuckling of a magic wand.

 

I remembered that it is important to be with others who are like me.

 

I remembered that it is always the right time to have a happy and magical childhood no matter how big or old we are. 

 

I remembered that what took me running, climbing, dangling, watching and listening was being in love with the world and my place in it. 

 

I remember that my journey is always taking me to love every day, every time.

 

There is the magic!

 

“I think that children have a power to imagine that is almost magical when compared to the adult imagination, and this is something irrevocable that a child loses when he or she becomes bound by logic … I think we should do everything we can to make it possible for children to hang onto the power to imagine in the almost magical sense for as long as possible.”
-Joseph Weizenbaum

 

If you liked this article, please share it on del.icio.us, StumbleUpon or Digg. Thanks!