Childhood

Today I had the overwhelming feeling that despite being 26 years old, I am still firmly within a personal era of childhood.  Not a childhood of skipping around on the playground carefree, but one of being somewhat powerless over the circumstances of one’s life.

In this way, it seems that childhood extends throughout our lifetimes.  What does it mean to be an adult?  I have the wherewithal to cope effectively with this powerlessness, despite the fact that it is frustrating and sometimes painful to me.  Hopefully, I also am able to use the shifting ground of circumstance to my benefit, by taking opportunities as they come and seeing the potential in each situation.  Although that’s not the carefree life, maybe it allows me to lessen my cares as I remember that I’m not in charge, nor do I know the ultimate solutions or answers to each question.

In fact, the childhoods we experience transform over our lives, I think.  I have responsibilities now that go beyond keeping my room clean, but I still have this powerlessness, and oftentimes a feeling of vulnerability.  Powerlessness and vulnerability ebb and flow throughout our lives.  So too, I hope that I can say that sometimes I have moments of uncomplicated thought, moments of wonder and joy, moments when someone else takes care of me.  Those moments may come sporadically or infrequently, but they are a part of the ongoingness of childhood.  Now, with those moments, I have an adult appreciation of what I am experiencing.

I wonder, with the gaining of skill and the establishment of a pattern of living that’s not based around the paradigm of school, how the childhood that I inhabit will transform.  I know that in a new job there will be plenty of powerlessness and vulnerability, plenty of moments of discovery, and hopefully an encouraging amount of wonder and help from others.  Does the feeling of childhood eventually melt away altogether, as responsibility and the constant consciousness of thought expand, or does it always remain, even as the thinnest residual film?  Perhaps one day I will be able to answer my own questions, and at that point I will know I’m no longer a child – but it seems to me that day is illusory, and happily so, since the reliance on others we learn in childhood is one of the greatest gifts of that age.

Now I Know That it's True

Michael and I broke up last week, and it’s hard not to go visit him each time I leave my studio. I don’t know where I stand with the whole thing, so I’m sure there will be a development of some sort in that storyline, but as much as I want to write about the whole thing, I’m not sure that a) there is much to write and b) that I’m ready to do anything of the sort.

So much for a memory a day. Let’s see if I can think of a good one for today at least.

I remember that on the old playground at school – the one that was inside of the U of the back building for Kindergarten – I used to pretend to be a unicorn when we were basically playing tag, and William Barley and Durham Barnes and I would all run around, except that since I was a unicorn, they couldn’t really get me. A year or two later, I learned to do penny drops there, and before that, I learned cartwheels and roundoffs in the part of the playground that we weren’t really supposed to play in. We’d watch the shuttles go off down by the lake, and you could see bald eagles in the trees nearby. I remember those Kindergarten rooms surprisingly well-I bet I could draw a reasonably accurate plan of them.

Good news – we have a subletter for the house, so I can rest assured that I don’t have to pay rent for Eugene while I’m living in Finland. Furniture studio is coming along, and today I felt like I have a chance of making this work for midterms. Not so sure about Product Design class, but I’ll just have to keep pushing on that one.

Speaking of which, I should get back to work, or at least to sleeping.

Memories

Thought I’d do something to help myself with children’s furniture: I’m going to try to post a memory of my childhood every day.

Number 1
I remember that my brother and I used to make radio shows. I think we probably only did it once or twice, but one day in particular, we spent hours with the tape recorder. We did funny voices, made jokes to one another, and pretended to be pirates. We sat in the front room of 649, on the sea green carpet, next to the black L-shaped bookcases that we had. 

I’m a bit frustrated with school lately, but have other good bits that I’m saving up – a great but tiring weekend of frisbee at Gandy Goose (3-3, finished 4th place out of 16); the first goslings of the season yesterday at the Millrace; Michael making me a very tasty stir fry for dinner Tuesday night.

HOPES is happening this weekend, so tonight I’m heading to the first keynote lecture. I need a quiet weekend soon!