Ten and Ink

It isn't so much that I'm waxing nostalgic today. It's more the case that I came across some old photos and it got me thinking. About how life starts out one way and as we grow, becomes a very different place. The girl in the picture below is ten years old. I thought it fitting that it's somewhat blurry, since that's how I remember her. In a hazy film of years gone by, days piled on days, details piled on details. By the time a decade or two (or three) passes, memories turn yellow-edged and murky. But I know this much. I know she's smiling because she's blissfully unaware. She's on vacation with her family and she doesn't know that it's such a precious thing, so sacred she ought to regard it piously- this moment with her parents and grandmother who, as far as this little girl is concerned - will share this earth with her for a bazillion years. And bazillion is an actual frame of reference. Because at ten she has no concept of time. Summers roll on through with endless crayon-scented breezes and chlorine induced highs. Winters arrive and she's cozy, safe, warm and dry, surrounded by the people she loves the most while she awaits the coming of another merry Christmas. Life will go along forever this way!
 Won't it?
She doesn't know that as she ages, somehow, as if under some warped, wicked spell, time will kick into high gear and careen by on a steroid induced flight. She doesn't know that her very best friends will hurt and disappoint her. That boys will painfully redefine her romantic school-girl notions about love and happily-ever after. That grandma's go to heaven before bazillion has a chance to happen. That vacations must sometimes take a back seat to paying the rent. And as she begins to become aware, of such unpleasant, downright awful things the likes of racism, crime, anxiety, loss and basic human suffering she realizes she'll never be ten again.
I remember it was about that time this little girl thought it best to escape into the pages of a book where she'd surely remain insulated from whatever life had in store for her. Sometimes she'd take pen to page and create an entire world of people who wouldn't let her down, wouldn't leave or do bad things. If reality couldn't be that way, then reading and writing would make it so.
This little girl. She's all grown up now. Tough lessons learned and learning still.

I guess I remember her a lot more than I thought I did.