There was this girl............

There was this girl I knew growing up. You know there's always one in school or your neighborhood you never forget... for one reason or the other. You know the one ...they smell, they're rude, they're a bully. This one was smart. Funny, curious, indignant for others, generous, didn't suffer fools lightly and full of charm. Her imagination was boundless and her heart was pure. She was an odd duck. A klutz and a troublemaker. She would trip on nothing and whilst going down for the count ...3..2..1 would be heckling boys 10 years her senior and never blink an eye. Small for her age, she climbed trees at recess time ripping newly mended uniform skirts ...for the umpteenth time ...that week, while the other girls sent her admonishing glances and preened for the attention of hormone crazed boys. Hers was a life of constant mishaps with no apologies.

One morning in the school auditorium she decided to sit on a chair that was broken...poor thing, and so on stage in front of the entire school she fell backwards arms akimbo, skirt over her head and amidst the laughter and the embarrassment she gasped sputtered and instead of crying, laughed the loudest. When walking with her friends, she tripped on imaginary laces and as all held their breaths with looks of not again!! on pained faces.... she barreled down a slope. Skirt in absolute disarray, they watched in dismay...she laughed. On a busy street, for no reason other than the limbs of the young have no control, she tripped and fell... she laughed.

She lived in the world of possibilities and wonder and endless laughter. Her days golden. Summer days were adventures under a sun drenched sky. Mischief was the unintended order of the day, as the feet hit the floor before her eyes opened with breakfast and cartoons..not necessarily in that order. Days end, she stank and wore layers of dirt proudly because it was well earned. She'd ridden bikes with no brakes that were so much bigger than her. Had ended up neck deep in the side road ditch full of muck because there was no other way to stop and not kill herself. She'd flown kites made from paper bags. Stolen yarn and sheets from her grandmothers closet ( even though she was warned that it would be a day of reckoning if she did not stop taking brand new sheets she saw as old) because that day like every summer day was the day she was going to win the dog fight with razors stuck on hand woven tails. . The moon would eventually chase her into goodnight. Amidst stars whose brilliance was as she in her brilliance , they were two of a kind. She fought the sleep but it would come as she dreamed of another day. She would win the hand tomorrow.

When I grow up I want to be the kid I was at nine.