Five Already

When I was eight, and my sister Anne-E was five, I sang her a song about the things I did when I was five. (At eight I still didn't understand that musicals were not real, and that an orchestra wouldn't swell up and carry us away with music and magically rhymed lyrics. This discovery would be made later, and brought with it much heartbreak.) In my improvised musical monologue I mentioned reading, camping in the backyard, playing on the swings, and probably a number of other things I have forgotten with the passage of time. But at eight I remembered them, and missed them enough to feel rather nostalgic about them.


If only the eight-year-old me had had any idea how heartbreaking and nostalgic it is watching your own child turn five.



Happy Birthday, Nicholas. May your year be magical.