childhood

Childhood does not come wrapped in plastic, with a million twist ties holding it perfectly in place within its cocoon of specially designed packaging.  It cannot be plucked off a shelf for purchase and it does not flourish in indoor lighting.  Childhood does not care about perfectly matched accessories or safety standards or how fashion forward something is.  Childhood does not adhere to a schedule. 
All of those things are grown up ideas.
Childhood is best found outdoors in the sunshine where the wind can lift its hair, or curled up beneath the sweetest of tiny tents made with the afghan from the back of the couch.  Childhood enjoys messes and mayhem, shouting and quiet whispers, wickedly good secrets told behind a cupped hand.  Childhood flourishes on imagination and wonder.   Childhood flourishes when left, for a little while, to its own devices.
These days, I think childhood is most often found in those moments in between the grown ups’ ideas of what a childhood should involve.  As we make our summer plans, we are striving to leave some time for childhood to flourish  for our little ones.  Remember what it was like to make mudpies?  To stomp in puddles until you were truly soaked through with laughter and muddy water?  Remember the first time you made a fort, or a tree house, or a tent beneath trees?  Remember laying in the grass and watching the clouds go by, with the good earthy smells invigorating your soul?  Remember sitting near a window and knowing that the rain was coming because you could smell it before you could see it? 
Letting time sit still without agenda is not an easy thing from the adult perspective.  We have a lot to do, endless lists of tasks and projects and a lot of the time it is difficult, if not impossible, to let go and go where the day takes us.  I am working so hard this summer, not at projects or task lists, but at letting our children have the kind of summer that I remember having.  I hope that when Emma and Harrison look back on these days later in life, they will recognize and appreciate that we let them have childhood in its most basic form.  I hope that they will not lament the lack of sports and dance and music lessons and endless rides in the backseat of the car while we shuffle them to and fro.  I hope, instead, that they will remember the perfect glass surface of our little lake before they cannonballed into it with a shriek of pure, childhood joy.