a character study

written much earlier | just cleaning out the drafts drawer

Interesting to sit back and watch someone's behavior as they act alone, unaware that eyes are upon them. I've been in a phase where I am happy to sit back and see what is making those around me tick.

This weekend I dropped off my youngest daughter, 12, at her friend's house. She had just seen the friend the night before so this particular moment struck me as all the more poignant. My daughter is quirky, she almost thrives on being off beat and has assumed the role of class clown with her quick humor and sarcastic reflexes. She likes to do things that are almost under the wire but odd enough that she won't be mistaken to be one of the crowd. On this cold morning, she sauntered up the walk to the front door in a way that had a sense of exaggerated silliness. Her friend stood in the entry, door cracked with her head peeking out and they both reflected the same beautifully wide smile. I had a moment of thinking of what the Romantic poets spoke, that innocent perfect joy that exists in child and is hard to fully experience once one has passed the threshold of life from teenage years to adulthood. Life throws out too much to keep that pristine perspective that allows for pure and complete joy. Wordsworth wrote a beautiful poem, Intimations of Immortality in which the poet ruminates:

O joy! that in our embers

Is something that doth live, 135

That nature yet remembers

What was so fugitive!

The thought of our past years in me doth breed

Perpetual benediction: not indeed

For that which is most worthy to be blest— 140

Delight and liberty, the simple creed

Of childhood, whether busy or at rest,

With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:—

. . .

Though nothing can bring back the hour

Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;

We will grieve not, rather find

Strength in what remains behind; 185

In the primal sympathy

Which having been must ever be;

In the soothing thoughts that spring

Out of human suffering;

In the faith that looks through death, 190

In years that bring the philosophic mind.

I love the optimism that Wordsworth brings me back to, despite this loss, this loss that in a sense steals the magic of our being -- the light that is inherent in untainted youth.