A picture of Aine and Annie on a bike outing near Chicago.
Aine starts 7th grade tomorrow. I have to let that sink in, because it’s 7th grade in which I started having all the “adult” memories that ended up being part of who I am today. Sure, I can remember childhood memories here and there. Mainly events like freezing on my way home from kindergarten one January day in Deerfield, only to have my grandmother send out my eldest brother Joe to rescue me from dying in the cul-de-sac. She made me sit on an electric radiator. Those sorts of memories stick with me for some odd reason. Or playing out in Wyoming with my cousins and watching the dry creek that ran by our cabin fill with water begrudgingly diverted for our pleasure by Willie Wolf, the local rancher. When we were not there, the creek was diverted back to irrigation for the horse pasture and ultimately found its way to the Buffalo River. Those childhood memories are always wrapped in the presence of my parents, grandparents and a life that was incredibly full of play time. I have significant memories that pop up in my head like a long-lost friend from the years 1-12. But those adult memories in which one becomes a person, with just the right amount of joy and pain delivered, that no longer needs Mom or Dad to help process, that is what I see in Aine. Annie and I are here of course, but her “course” is no longer dependent totally on us. That epiphany of not being a child anymore is what I remember of that last day of summer before 7th grade.
It was the last year where I wouldn’t have to work a summer job my older siblings already were experiencing. Sure, there were the chores around Rose Farm, taking care of the animals from chickens to sheep. But my 12-year-old summer day was free for the most part. Mom was too busy to supervise all of us. And, for the most part I would find myself riding our pony Lucky or wandering off into the woods, exploring. That idyllic feeling of nothing to worry about and nothing to account for was slowly slipping and I didn’t know it, though I could feel it. I could feel it in the way my older siblings acted, coming home from corn detasseling, tired, sweaty and mud caked. They didn’t have the energy to go do something fun. Those last few days of their summer were already taken with high school--running cross country and getting all the books together for classes. They were no longer children but heading out into young adulthood. And it is these last summer days, when it still is hot outside, the mosquitoes are still biting and everything feels just like July, except it isn’t July, it’s August and heading toward September. Already the pull of school is there for Aine. The class will have a half day to have a party and get reacquainted with the classroom. Then it will be onto 7th grade, when one knows grade school is almost over and high school looms in the distance. There is no going back to childhood, at least not in this life and in some ways, that’s a good thing. And the tumble and jumble of a busy summer is already over. Most of the summer plans, excitedly discussed in May, face the reality of late August. And what makes this August hard to face is that next summer will not have that little kid around anymore. I almost feel guilty to condemn Aine to a life of adulthood, knowing that adulthood can still have magic, joy and beauty. But it is perceived through adult eyes and with the firm dictates of time. Appointments and expectations and all of that adult world there for the rest of her life. And the mess of the adult world, from petulant leaders to burning forests and massive data centers, all of that starts coming in like so many monsters. A dry creek bed of reality that she and her peers will eventually have to tackle. I cannot divert a stream of wonder and play her way anymore. It is just so much wasted water.
It is funny that we are given so much joy as children and that once we cross that Rubicon of adulthood, we spend the rest of our lives trying to recapture that joy, I know and believe Aine will be able to make her way into this adult world. And I will be there to make sure she is able to see it through the artist's eyes--a wonderful stream of joy she has the power to make happen or not. These are the thoughts I have on her last day of childhood summer. Tomorrow, the day will be almost as long, the mosquito will bite just as hard, but everything, everything has changed.
READ MARTIN’S OTHER BLOG HERE.