How to Stay Young Forever

I got out of work early today and let out a thorny sigh, dreaming of the days of carefree childhood. Days were longer then, I swear it, when I was so small they reached out like long shadows of Koa trees over my sunburned knees. The sun would wake me with a loving pinch on my cheek, and the moon would wink upon my pillowcase at night. I would run with the crickets in the jasmine-elixir of shaping poetry as the inspiration danced with my free yellow hair. And, like Naomi Shihab-Nye reflects in Growing, I felt that stabbing realization that memories build up in cloudy blankets like dreams - slipping away with wakefulness. That loss of youth stings you when you turn 10 years old.

Double digits have so many consequences. I remember wishing, when I was 9, that I was 16 and able to drive a blue sports car across the ocean to great big "mainland." Sixteen tapped my back before I was ready to claim it, wagging it's finger, saying, 'watch what you wish for." Why is it that we can't wait to grow up when the world seems to be endless, yet as soon as we cut the red tape into "adult" life, we become filled with regret for all those carefree moments - those that eclipsed into dreams too quickly? Naomi Shihab-Nye remarks on these and other things in her collection, Never In a Hurry. She illustrates with ease the blatant beauty of life that winks at our distracted faces every day.

There are so many dazzling, yet simple awarenesses, that Shihab-Nye exudes, and at times I feel compelled to plaster them all over my walls to serve as a constant reminder that life is a gift, that low moments need not be filled with monsters of expectation. Sometimes I find that my tendency to overanalyze existence wears me down, and I find myself, like today, wishing I had something productive to do. But isn't that the trouble with Americans?

Hadn't Americans become to destination oriented, hurtling forth toward places when we barely had enough time to get there, driving fast all the way? (Shihab-Nye)