Childhood: Our Touchstone for Wonder

How to get in touch with Little You and create big new work for today.

- ELIZABETH SIMS

When spring came, the kids in my neighborhood trooped out to the five-and-dime and bought kite kits. Flimsy paper, balsa wood struts, no instructions, $0.15. We'd run home to put the kites together and hopefully swipe a ball of string from the junk drawer.

My dad would notice what I was doing and insist that I attach a tail to my kite. The only stuff available was torn strips of rags, knotted together. Ugly! I was the odd kid out, carrying my kite to the playground with the rag tail looped over my arm.

But when we started running to get our kites in the air, well, guess whose went up and up, while those of my pals rose a little, then spun out and crashed.

I marveled at my dad's genius. Moreover, the wonder I felt holding that taut string, watching the kite trade wisecracks with the wind all afternoon-what a thrill! Then I grew up and left kites behind.

You too? Why?

We're all busy with adult life. What a sorry excuse! Are we all jaded? Exhausted? Overfed with instant media and the shallow dopamine hits we get from it?

Yeah, maybe. But as writers, we can't afford that.

No matter what you're writing, getting in touch with Little You-that unpolluted brain, that frank curiosity!— can refresh your spirit and spark new ideas. You know it's true.

Rediscovering wonder is about being open, banishing cynicism and sarcasm. It's about allowing ourselves to be innocent again; it's about scraping off the armor we've accumulated without really knowing it.

The elements of wonder, as a kid might see it, are newness, beauty, courage, grace, dignity. What else might Little You add?

I might note that although childhoods filled with sunshine and candy can be great compost for a writer, so can unhappy ones. More so, perhaps, which is some cold comfort.

Let's take time now to slow down, go deep-and go back. Then let's write some new stuff.

REMEMBER