Wisdom Comes with Age

“Childhood is a short season.”

      -Helen Hayes

           

I love getting to know people. Not just their name and favorite color, but I love getting to know all aspects of them. One of my favorite questions to ask is “what is something weird you believed as a child?” The responses I receive are so strange, yet so revealing to who they are as a person.

            When I was a child, I believed many a strange thing.

I thought, for one, that dumb-waiters were actually elevators for tiny people that lived on different levels within the walls.

            I thought that my dog was my late grandpa reincarnated, so I would speak to him and tell him everything.

I thought the wind would guide me to make decisions. I would stand outside and listen. I would walk in the direction of the wind until I got bored.

             I thought that if I slept in my empty bathtub, I would become a mermaid. I did this quite often. I would bring my pillow, a blanket and assorted stuffed animals. I always wore a nightshirt so that was my tail could grow as I slept. We had a large shell my parents used for decoration on my bathroom shelves. I would climb the shelves and bring the shell down and sleep with it. I thought that if I were a mermaid, I would need a conch shell to summon the others to come get me. It made sense at the time.

I thought that there was a Native American burial ground beneath our back field, so my sister and I would go out in the morning with shovels and dig until evening. Everything we found somehow became evidence of our suspicions. If you dig deep enough, you get to a clay-type of soil, so we thought we were finding smooshed pottery from the tribe we were trying so desperately to find.

            Once, we had a muskrat trapped in our window well. My older sister and I danced around in our best dresses in front of the window to Brittney Spears and Hillary Duff music. The muskrat would go absolutely crazy and tear our screen to shreds. We took this to mean he liked our dancing and singing. We subsequently created a band called ‘Dolls in the Attic’ because of our success in the animal kingdom. It never really took off.

            My dad would take care of the waterfall in front of our neighborhood. There was a small door in the back of the ‘rock’ structure where the pumps were stored. I always thought there was a small man that lived inside of there who continually pumped the water. I thought my dad would never let me in there because the little man was naked. I would always look away when my dad opened the door out of respect. 

            I thought for certain that rabbit feet were lucky. I once found a rabbit foot in our backyard from an unlucky coyote encounter. I picked it up and carried it to my parents. The nasty thing was bloody and had the bone protruding from it. I still thought it was lucky. Forget the black plague and rabies, right? My parents were mad at me for doing this and I couldn’t understand why.

I once convinced my older sister that I was the tooth fairy, and she believed me for the longest time. She once told me “I’m the sandman,” and I called her out on it. “The Sandman has to be a man, duh.” I then told her I was the tooth fairy. She told me to prove it. I said if she would quiz me, she’d know the truth.  She asked ”Did mom ever set up a camera to try and catch you?” I totally guessed and said “no”. I was right, and she believed me. I had the poor thing under my thumb. #payback #sorrynotsorry 

Til next time.

-B