–
“I am still every age that I have been.
Because I was once a child, I am always a child.”
–
“Because I was once a searching adolescent,
given to moods and ecstasies,
these are still part of me, and always will be…
This does not mean that I ought to be trapped or enclosed in
any of these ages…the delayed adolescent, the childish adult,
but that they are in me to be drawn on; to forget is a form of suicide…
Far too many people misunderstand what putting away childish things
means, and think that forgetting what it is like to think and feel
and touch and smell and taste and see and hear like a three-year-old
or a thirteen-year-old or a twenty-three-year-old
means being grownup. When I’m with these people I, like the kids,
feel that if this is what it means to be a grown-up,
then I don’t ever want to be one.
Instead of which, if I can retain a child’s awareness and joy,
and be fifty-one,
then I will really learn what it means to be grownup.”
–
–
I read Madeleine L’Engle as an adult while I took YA Literature with Millicent Lenz at UAlbany, on my way to my librarian degree. It was her nonfiction books about her family, husband and life that impressed me so much. She had a way of making a simple lifestyle seem so profound with her observations. Thank you for reminding me of someone special in my reading life.
Thanks for reading, Joyce. I hope you are well.