Remembering Nine

I keep this picture on the window sill in front of my desk. 

I spy me at nine-years-old (second row seated, 4th from the right) and remember the rampant creativity, daydreams and hopes I had back then.

I tell myself I need to wander back --a little--to all that creativity, days when I'd peer ahead and glimpse only bright, glad times up the street. And like when I saw starfish and imagined a black sky crowded with glowing ones. 

Afternoons I'd stare at a refrigerator box on someones driveway and envision a play house complete with curtains at the cut-out windows. Days when every moment held possibilities for a sort of colorful grandeur.

To now not be childish, but rather, child-like, especially in wonder, faith and trust.

And I keep that picture near me so I'll remember to pray for those other children-now-all-grown-up, wherever they may be. I wonder what kinds of years they've lived and whether they, also, try never to wander too far from what was best that 4th grade year. 

There's much good right now while we are in our 40's, yes, but I'm finding this decade an even better one when I stir a little nine-year-old-child creativity into the mix.


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Do you know where your class pictures are? 


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