Tag Archives: childhood
A child in every one
Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight make me a child again just for to-night! ~ Elizabeth Akers Allen There is a child in every one of us who is still a trick-or-treater looking for a brightly-lit front porch.— Robert Brault Perhaps no holiday brings back more childhood memories than Halloween. The festivities of …
Things that look used
“I like things that look used, especially when they were used by someone who matters to me.” – Gary Hager Does this raggedy raccoon look familiar? If so, you may have seen him in this post. Actually, I have pictures of him in any number of places; looking out the window of the Coast Starlight, …
In the fall
“Don’t you love New York in the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address.” ― Nora Ephron I love fall because it is connected with my happiest memories of childhood. In particular, the onset of cooler …
Carry your childhood with you
“If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older.” — Tom Stoppard Here it is: photographic evidence that a lot of things about me haven’t changed in nearly half a century. I still love cats. I still love yellow. I still wear my hair in a bun often (no wisecracks about librarians here). And the camera, well, …
A big journey
“Childhood isn’t just something we ‘get through.’ It’s a big journey, and it’s one we’ve all taken. Most likely, though, we’ve forgotten how much we had to learn along the way about ourselves and others.” — Fred Rogers One of the most sobering things about being around children is the realization that everything we do …
Like a fire
“A place that ever was lived in is like a fire that never goes out.” – Eudora Welty The house pictured above is the place I will always think of as my childhood home. I’ve returned there, just to drive by it, several times since my parents first moved away more than twenty years after …
So much faster
“They outgrow us so much faster than we outgrow them.” – Jodi Picoult Drew and Grady flew in to see us on Matt’s birthday. I had not seen Grady in nine months, and during that time he went from a somewhat precocious four year old to a very mature five year old. His birthday is …
To wander
“Wandering is the activity of the child, the passion of the genius; it is the discovery of the self, the discovery of the outside world, and the learning of how the self is both ‘at one with’ and ‘separate from’ the outside world. These discoveries are as fundamental to the soul as ‘learning to survive’ …
Much is taken, much abides
“Though much is taken, much abides; and though We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.” — …
When it catches you
“The earth is covered…..and it is falling still in silence so deep that you can hear its silence. It is snow to be shoveled, to make driving even worse than usual, snow to be joked about and cursed at, but unless the child in you is entirely dead, it is snow, too, that can make …
Where snow is rare
“I’ve always felt lucky to live someplace where snow is rare, you know? It’s rareness that makes it so special.” ― Stephanie Perkins Unlike Perkins, I didn’t always feel lucky that snow was rare for me. As a kid I read books about other kids from all different eras, who lived where the snow piled …
The keeping-place
“Christmas is the keeping-place for memories of our innocence.” — Joan Mills I couldn’t find anything about who Joan Mills was, but she must have had memories of Christmas that were similar to my own. For me, no other time of year brings as deep a connection to childhood. Perhaps it’s the combination of scents, sights …
Come as children
O men, grown sick with toil and care, Leave for awhile the crowded mart; O women, sinking with despair, Weary of limb and faint of heart, Forget your years to-day and come As children back to childhood’s house. — Phoebe Cary Today I invite you to set aside a few moments for remembering what it …
An echo from the past
Nothing is Lost by Noel Coward Deep in our sub-conscious, we are told Lie all our memories, lie all the notes Of all the music we have ever heard And all the phrases those we loved have spoken, Sorrows and losses time has since consoled, Family jokes, out-moded anecdotes Each sentimental souvenir and token Everything …
Always more
“I don’t know that there are real ghosts and goblins, but there are always more trick-or-treaters than neighborhood kids.” — Robert Brault Giving out candy on Halloween is almost as much fun as trick-or-treating. I don’t know which I enjoy most, seeing my cute neighbors in their costumes, or seeing all the people I don’t …
The past is beautiful
“I can only note that the past is beautiful because one never realises an emotion at the time. It expands later, and thus we don’t have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.” ― Virginia Woolf Reading this quote, I can only wish that Woolf had thought of these words before she took …
The soul is healed
“The soul is healed by being with children.” ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky “A baby is God’s opinion that the world should go on.” ― Carl Sandburg What a difference one short year makes in the life of a baby! When I compare the photo above to the one posted one year ago today, which was taken …
To find the beautiful
“Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not.”― Ralph Waldo Emerson A year ago today I wrote about Drew’s beloved toy raccoon Gludgey, who went along with our family everywhere we traveled. Books, favorite snacks, and comfortable shoes are other things we …
The ordinary things
“If I seem to write to write most happily about the ordinary things that boys do who live in the country it is because this is the part of my childhood that I look back upon with the greatest affection.” — Christopher Milne Look closely at the name of the person who wrote today’s quote. …
Now that I am fifty
“When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” — …
First adventure
“I doubt whether the world holds for anyone a more soul-stirring surprise than the first adventure with ice cream.” — Heywood Broun Unless maybe the first or second adventure with birthday cake. (Grady got a sneak preview with Megan’s chocolate cake.) Maybe it’s my imagination, but Bailey (she’s the one on the right) seems to …
Like poignant land mines
“Nothing is more memorable than a smell…Smells detonate softly in our memory like poignant land mines hidden under the weedy mass of years. Hit a tripwire of smell and memories explode all at once. A complex vision leaps out of the undergrowth.” — Diane Ackerman Tangerines smell like Christmas to me, just as onions sauteed …
Defeat Despair 