Tumbles

I was the kid with sap in my hair and animal teeth. I still am, but now my hairs clean, and its my heart that gets stuck. I never went to school. Not because I played hookey, but because my mom decided to homeschool my older sister and I. We aren't conservative christians, or the strange outliers that most people think of when they hear homeschoolers. Quite the opposite. My sister and I were "hippy kids" for lack of better words, and I cannot imagine a better way to grow up. While most other children were sitting in nicely lined desks, filling their minds with fluff about which kinds of stardust are real, my sister and I were navigating the world with our hands. We would rub dandelions on our skins, because everyone knows that faeries are yellow. We got up around 9 o'clock and played until it got dark. Climbing trees, reinacting the heroes from our favorite books, playing dress-up, and having tea parties. Growing up like this is the real reason I am on my journey today. I truly believe that if I had gone to school, I would have lost my self, and it would be far too hard to regain it.

For I have never really stopped being myself. By the time I went to "real school" in 9th grade, I knew Santa Clause and Harry Potter didn't exist, but I never stopped believing in magic. I guess in a lot of ways I never really stopped being six years old. I found that even though I had not received "conventional learning" I was still ahead of most kids in my grade!


 People sneer the word naive through their teeth, like it is a bad, stupid thing to be, but I feel sorry for those who aren't. It's not that I don't know the risks, it's just that I chose to believe in something else. It's not that I don't know the danger of strangers but I have chosen to believe in something else.

Childhood and the sweet warm memories that lie somewhere in the peripheral vision of my minds eye. You can almost see them clearly.

Blurred light, mingled voices, taste of something soft and sweet on your tongue.

Never again to be seen in plain view—

The outliers, the folded eggwhites of life’s lane. 

Where does childhood lie?

It is in the corners of my eyes. The way my crow’s feet have already begun to crinkle with 20 years of laughter. It lies in the way I move my hands, the way my legs itch to run in a circular dizzying way. It lies in the craving to explore jungle gyms. It lies in the need to be held, to cry, to laugh. It is the impossibilities.