relearning childishness. version 1

i've spent an enormous amount of time this summer forgetting and remembering and trying to remember and reliving and forgetting all over again what it means to be a child. it's a funny thing, to move back to the same neighborhood you grew up in after nearly two decades of estrangement, only to find startlingly poignant pockets of familiarity here and there.

two of the students i've been tutoring are much less students and much more little kids, aged 8 and 6, forced to study english while july leaks slowly towards august. in the journal entries i assign them to write i find that i am remembering, more than through anything else, exactly what it was to be 7-years-old and living a stifling summer in seoul. and how it was that the playground could squeal its appeal to me with such delight, or the way the river could look so eternally magical with its queue of boats strung like christmas lights. in my land of reverie i was a golden princess trapped by a wicked spell, or an adventuring scientist looking for a medicinal cure in the local backyard jungle, or a girl with a lovely necklace, falling from a castle in the sky...



thanks to miyazaki for his unfailing artistry and his continuing ability to perfectly illustrate all of the grandest imaginations and excitements of being seven again.
(and, of course, the opening credits of castle in the sky.)