age

I was listening to NPR as I do when I ride in the morning. A quote came on the radio for whatever story, “What age would you be if you didn’t know how old you were” (Satchel Paige). I thought about that for about a month and it bugged me and it settled in to begin to really work on my mind. Interesting when you first think of it, but when a person really thinks about it, how old are you anyway? Why does time spiral around with each turn adding another year and weighting a person down? Does it really spiral around or does it just meander?

I remember standing by a Meyer Lemon tree on the side of the house in Modesto I grew up in. I was three years old. There was the sharp tangy sour citrus smell of the leaves and the slightly sweet scent of the ripe lemons. I remember the heat of the day because it was summer, just before my birthday and had on shorts and a stripped tee shirt and my favorite buckle big boy sandals. This was a few days before my fourth birthday and I was alone hiding by the tree practicing making four with my fingers and seeing that it was so much easier than putting up three fingers like adults wanted me to do. Three was so hard for me to do; I needed two hands to make three fingers with one hand. My thumb just was too short to reach over and catch my little finger which bent down with the ring finger. I clearly remember wondering why four did not come before three because four was so much easier to make than three with a person’s fingers. I could easily fold my thumb over inside my palm and hold up four fingers with one hand. It seemed right that the harder numbers to make with your fingers should be made by older kids. That is my earliest clear memory.

A year or so later I was standing on a green vinyl chrome kitchen chair in the kitchen of my house next to the chrome and green Formica kitchen table. This was the summer before I started school and I was still a little kid. Standing on the chair I surveyed the room and waited until my dad walked through. He, of course, told me to get off the chair and asked what I thought I was doing, all that stuff like, was I a crazy kid doing something completely off the wall like that because people don’t stand on chairs. I stayed on the chair long enough to judge how high my head was as compared to his and noticed that even on the chair my head was still shorter than my father’s. What I wanted to see was what the world would look like when I was an adult the age of my father. My few minutes of scanning the world I had not been quite tall enough and I could not imagine being taller. I was already so far from the ground while standing on the chair. If I had got that big medical dictionary and a couple of volumes of encyclopedia and put that on top of the chair that would do been enough to reach the right height. But doing that would be scary tall and dangerous too if I fell. I remember being a bit afraid of growing up and being that tall because it would be dangerous to stand up.

When was about nine and playing with the kids in the neighborhood during the long days of summer sometime in the afternoon having fun and doing all kinds of kid’s stuff. My broth and sister and I got called in to the house for some reason. My mom and some other adult people were in there talking about something and telling us what to do to get ready for something. I can remember plainly thinking that there was a real difference between the way children think and adults think. I can remember standing with a flash of insight at that time that adults do not know what it is like to be a kid; they have forgotten being a kid even though they must have been one once. Adults change and become adults and leave childhood behind. At that moment I was in the laundry room and I thought that I recognized how a kid really thinks and that I would always remember that forever even when I became an adult. I would remember that moment and know how a child thinks and be able to understand them because I would remember the difference and maybe not let myself change. I can see myself standing there telling myself to never forget how a child thinks so I will not be one of those adults who just do not understand what it is like to be a kid.

So how old would I be if I didn’t know how old I was? Time is all confused and does not run in cycles of years, but is a path that is faster or slower at times. I don’t see cycles so much in my life.

I am still that little kid standing by the lemon tree wondering about how to make three with his fingers. Something happened and I didn’t notice being able to grab that little finger with my thumb all with one hand, but I almost always remember standing by that tree when I make three with my fingers. I am still that person who was not brave enough to put the books on the chair to see the world from view of an adult. I don’t remember changing from that position of viewing the world of knees and thighs to the faces of adults eye to eye. I do think about the change from time to time and I remember being on that chair and being afraid to grow up because I would be too tall. Thinking as a kid I believe I really held onto and that is why I do what I do, teach middle school. I really remember being a kid and have tried to keep that memory and fought the invasion of the adult thinking.

My birthday is at such an odd time it often goes unnoticed so it is easy for the world to miss and I don’t really realize the passage of time. How old am I if I didn’t know how old I was? I look through the eyes of the little boy by the lemon tree wondering why things are; I’m the child on a chair trying to view the world of the future; I’m trying to remember how it is to think clearly with imagination and freedom without responsibility like the child inside. I haven’t changed inside at all. I still have questions and still seek answers.