28 years ago

I got a glimpse into my childhood the other day, through the eyes of my daughter. She's the firstborn, as was I.

My longtime friend and his wife came down from Logan with their four boys, all under age five including a couple of twins almost the exact same age as RJ. I was astonished at how excitable, how absolutely tickled, RJ was to have other kids around. She was hyperventilating. Too young to really "play" with other kids, she just cruised around picking up toys and tossing them aside, banging her palms fiercely on anything and everything. I guess I always thought our company was the best she could ask for. This just confirmed the need to have more kids. Dang it. But I realized, as I watched her watching the action unfold around her, that I too was an only child for a time (three years).

I saw myself through a window in time, towheaded, toothy grin, playing by myself on the green carpet in my parents' late 70's apartment. I saw the roots, maybe, of my social neediness. In some ways I am more introverted than my brothers and sisters, but not more solitary. I am drawn to the nexus of human interaction like a wayward moth, blind and seeking, always afraid of missing something, always wanting to eat experience like a lotus flower and be born up by something outside of myself. Seeking. So much for self-pop-psycho-analysis.

Listening to Richard Buckner's "Bloomed", and feeling wistful, like a winter leaf on the edge of spring, watching the clear sun from under the muddy branches, while the ground gives way.