On sunshiny days like this I always remember what it was like when I was a kid. I'm reminded of coming home from school, where I was pretty much an outcast for most of my grade school life since I was considered as the weird kid in class. I was reading big books with no pictures and a lot of big words, I had weird clothes and things because my Dad's a hippie and I had no mom and no one believed that I spent my weekends in a beach house, or they believed me and thought I was a snob. But at 2.30 in the afternoon, none of that would matter anymore because I would be home. The helpers would have a merienda of TJ with scrambled eggs and garlic french bread waiting for me while I changed out of my school uniform and into my bathing suit and I'd spend the rest of the afternoon playing with Bear or swimming in the pool until my skin was so wrinkled and blistering from being in the water for too long.
My dad was usually at the job site or with his friends, and when he was home he was working furiously on his drawings. But at that age I never begrudged him the time he didn't spend with me because when he did have time for me it was always fun. And I liked being alone most of the time. It gave me time to retreat into my imagination. I was never lonely. Even when I would eventually become bored, I would just look for the next thing I could do, not for someone to play with.
Lolo's house was always the perfect place for imagining being in different worlds. The garden by the garage became part of the Hundred Acre wood. The pool and the kamias tree was a magical forest and Bear was the well, the bear that would be my protector against giant Rats and freaky birds in the forest.
I don't miss the innocence of that time because I don't think I was ever really innocent. Ignorant maybe, but never innocent. I just miss being Ok with being alone.
