Only The Children Are Happy

Swinging and skipping; innumerable summers at our country house filled with children’s laughter and dog barking – sometimes the dogs bit us but we kept playing joyously oblivious to the pain of the wounds, and the even bigger pain of the ticking of the clock.

That one summer, before I had even reached my teens, I was the bravest I have ever been – nothing was going to ruin my ecstatic hope for an indestructible fairytale future.

I ran into the water trying to swim even though I didn't know how to and I wasn’t going to let anyone show me or take me out of the water, I said, I will do it.

I failed but moved on quickly – I was going to be a dancer now, I said, and despite of my mother’s veto, when I think of that summer, all I see myself do is dance.

The games with my cousins, the badminton and football the hide and seek, the carrot and raspberry picking from our garden, our grandparents’ meals which I can still taste in my mouth and I would give anything to be able to taste again;

This was life; don’t tell me it’s going to end.

Don’t tell me I will go back to my dear summer home and my grandfather won’t be alive, don’t tell me I will be too old to run all day long and play;

Don’t tell me I’d have changed or that I would be a failure.

Ah, the beauty of youth – so unintentional, unpretentious and short-lived; can’t we all remain as young as we were that summer?

Look at us now – a random and funny mixture of angels and monsters fighting all the wrong battles, fearful and careful;

I don’t go in the water anymore too scared I would drown, and I don’t dance unless I have to.

Have we wasted our lives or have we forgotten how to live?

I had forgotten how happy I used to be until I started reminiscing – it’s hard to top the feeling of a happy child on a hot summer day: running barefoot, shooting water guns with your cousin while your grandmother shouts ‘Dinner is ready!’

You’re out of breath and you’re not hungry; your feet hurt but you don’t care.