The WHO You WERE

    One of my favorite children’s books is The Little Prince, by Antoine De Saint-Expéry, and my love for this book began with the dedication to Leon Werth, when he was a little boy.

“I ask children to forgive me for dedicating this book to a grown-up.  I have a serious excuse:  this grown-up is the best friend I have in the world.  I have another excuse:  this grown-up can understand everything, even books for children.  I have a third excuse:  he lives in France where he is hungry and cold.  He needs to be comforted.  If all these excuses are not enough, then I want to dedicate this book to the child whom this grown-up once was.

And here’s where my flesh raised and tears filled my eyes:

“ALL GROWN-UPS WERE CHILDREN FIRST.  (BUT FEW OF THEM REMEMBER IT.)”

As a writer, it’s my job to read books – a job I GLADLY take on.  They say you become a better writer by reading as much as possible and to focus on those books in your genre.  Considering I write for both adults and children, this means I read EVERYTHING.  I have to say that at this point, I’m a lot more impressed at what is being written and published for children much more than what comes out for adults.  Mostly, I focus on middle-grade to YA when I’m reading children’s novels.  These authors are writing smart for children.  Children aren’t an easy demographic to write for at all.  While they still believe in the magic, the magic has to make sense.  Whereas, adults don’t believe in the magic, but they’ll read formulaic drivel (aka brain candy).  It doesn’t matter if the novel makes sense or not, it’s like a Calgon bath – adults want to be taken away.

A couple of days ago, a young boy (about the age of 3 or 4), sat next to me on the C train going uptown.  He was with his mom and brother.  I, of course, fell in love instantly.  Can you blame me?  He had a blonde mop of curls and Caribbean blue eyes – that widened and absorbed everyone around him.

He no sooner sat next to me that his mom pulled out a small artist notebook and pack of crayons and handed them to him.  It took every ounce of my strength not to play with those curls and to not touch the apples of his cheeks.  He was deliberate in his choice of crayon, as he already knew exactly what he was going to draw.  He paused to consider more than once – complete with tongue poking out the side of his mouth.  Was I watching a three year-old, or a 20 year-old inhabiting the body of a three year-old?

He turned his body toward his mom so the notebook could be propped on his knee.  With this perfect drawing position, he ended up leaning into me.  This old soul drawing with precision and creative energy also had the innocence and purity of one not yet marred with cynicism.  He never looked back to see who I was.  His spirit knew he was safe.

I wonder if we as adults can remember what it were like to be three.  Can we close our eyes and channel the child we once were?  Would it be so horrible to trust someone first before testing his or her merit?  Would it be so horrible to see the good in people?

The little boy’s name is Aidan.  Aidan’s mom saw how much her son liked creating and she encourages him.  (Kudos to you, MOM!)  Aidan also has a keen interest in how things are spelled.  He must have asked his Mom how to spell about 12 words, and as she spelled them he wrote them out with the intensity of a surgeon with a scalpel.  Might I add that Mr. Aidan’s handwriting was perfect.  I’m not kidding.  I have grown adults working for me whose handwriting borders on Egyptian hieroglyphics.  When I complimented Aidan on his handwriting, he looked up at me and said, “Thanks.  I like words.”

Oh and I know those of you who know me are wondering if I bit him.  Believe me, I wanted to and I pretty much said so in my head and not to him directly because I didn’t want to scare him or his mom.

Here’s my challenge to those of you reading this blog.  Go back to old photos of you when you were a child.  Find the one special photo that encapsulates the energy and spirit of you.  Close your eyes and remember who you were then, what you felt, and what your dreams were.  Take your time, it’s not like I’ll have a stopwatch.  And when you’re ready, come up with a word or a phrase to describe the you, you were back then.  Write it down and carry it with you.  Look at the word(s) often and breathe them into your heart.

I leave you all with the last page of The Little Prince.

“IT’S ALL A GREAT MYSTERY.  For you, who love the little prince, too.  As for me, nothing in the universe can be the same if somewhere, no one knows where, a sheep we never saw has or has not eaten a rose…

Look up at the sky.  Ask yourself, “has the sheep eaten the flower or not?”  And you’ll see how everything changes…

And no grown-up will ever understand how such a thing could be so important!”

~ by Michele Mattia on 2007, September 16.