When I was 6 years I lived a seemingly carefree life filled with delightful surprises and mysteries that seem to elude me now, as an adult. The enchantment of ignorance in our childhoods and the bitter taste of truth that comes as we enter adulthood make life oxymoronic.
Today I was inspired by my students to write about the age of 6. Many take this age for granted, but this is the magic number that shapes us. For some this is their first time to be in school, or to face the unsheltered world outside of home. I read 15 stories similar to my own. But for my students, being six years old happened not long ago, in the year 2000! Some things never change like family traditions, quarrels, friendenmies in the playground and the hot toy one has to have for Christmas.
1986 was my year of becoming a worldly six year old. By worldly I mean that I my mom had to drive 30 minutes from the suburbs to the city to the hell-hole I called catholic school. The campus spread for an entire block! Well, that was in the eyes of a child. It was three stories tall and had several other buildings around it, including the chapel. I didn’t last long, though, but the memories abound about this place. I will never forget how I was hit with a metal ruler on the hand for not being able to copy fast enough from the board. I remember the teacher’s face, but her name has been long forgotten. The evil and hatred inside her are unforgettable. I don’t remember a single lesson she taught. I loved to wear the uniform and wore it with pride. Who doesn’t love plaid? Eventually mom took me out of there to a place where my soul would be nurtured not by archaic men and women in robes.
My favorite playground was the backyard. I entered a magic world whenever I stepped there. My sister and I pretended to be explorers discovering new lands, ala Columbus, and/or being rules of a colorful empire. That memory is pleasantly stashed in my mind, along with the aroma of the herbs in my grandma’s garden that I can’t even begin to list. The scent was so intoxicating! It intoxicates me now and fills me with nostalgia. I remember the grass tickling my skin as I laid down to look up at the blue skies. I often admired the clouds trying to figure out what shape they had.
I climbed the mango tree and even to the roof of the house once or twice. I could see the airport and the Atlantic Ocean from there. Lil sis and I had tea parties and also played with our 5 cats that had a nice “fenced-in” room in the back. The gladiolas and hibiscus were always in bloom. The skies were always blue and the clouds were everything I wanted to be. The lizards roamed freely as my imagination and rainbows appeared after every storm.
I still have mysteries in my life to solve and perhaps it will take another 25 years to figure out. The sweet isn’t sweet without the sour. There’s a slight sense of innocence about me every now and then. I regress into a child around my students, my surrogate children. I am constantly taking form and ever-evolving by the richness of the lives around me, the famine in some of the souls that parade up and down my street and the chaos that is everlasting. I still ride a lot and go nowhere with my dog in the back seat. I feel at peace in nature, when we explore the limited vastness of the bike trail or as we walk along the pond at the park. Okay, there’s smog in the air, and intoxicating to the point of being nauseating, but… Perhaps I’ll be eternally exploring “new” worlds, especially the ones inside me and the possibilities that are yet to be discovered and paths that need to be paved.
