Our Long Lost Youth

"Often I think of the beautiful town

      That is seated by the sea;

Often in thought go up and down

The pleasant streets of that dear old town,

      And my youth comes back to me.

            And a verse of a Lapland song

            Is haunting my memory still:

      'A boy's will is the wind's will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.' "

We do strange things on New Years.  We stay up and count down the minutes like it's something life-changing: this transition from one year to another.  "It's new."  "It's exciting."  Sentiments that, if we are honest, more often mean, "Last year is old."  "We can't change it, so let's not do it again."  We make promises to ourselves as if this one special day makes some sort of permanent seal--something lasting.  Maybe it does for some people.  But most of us hit February 1st, or more often January 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and the seal doesn't hold anymore.  Resolutions fade, and next year we resolve to make fewer or less grand ones so maybe we can keep them.  And so we dream smaller, year after year, holding to weaker and weaker resolutions that seem to slip out of our fingers anyway.

"I can see the shadowy lines of its trees,

      And catch, in sudden gleams,

The sheen of the far-surrounding seas,

And islands that were the Hesperides

      Of all my boyish dreams.

            And the burden of that old song,

            It murmurs and whispers still:

      'A boy's will is the wind's will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.' "

My mind was brought to Longfellow this year.  A week or so before 2016 I found myself sorting through an old toy box that I had made into the haven for all my old writing.  I have always been, as far back as I can remember, a hoarder of my own work.  That box was full to the brim of writings, scribbles, drawings, and such.  And, in sorting through, I still wasn't throwing away.  Yes, the physical papers have finally gone to feed the fire in the woodstove out back, but I digitalized them first.  And during those hours of scanning page after page, I realized something.

We dream bigger as children.

Back then there were no limits.  It's not just stories on those wrinkled pages.  It's worlds.  I did not just aspire to be a writer.  I was going to be all for my realms: writer, composer, cartographer, artist, linguist, and so much more.  And it seems these days I am making a courageous effort to even call myself "writer" instead of just "someone with a bachelors degree in writing": just the facts with no commitment--no dreams.  At only twenty-one I feel I've broken too many promises to myself to try making any of substance.  An eerie hollow makes its home in my chest, watching the old pages go out to burn.

"I remember the sea-fight far away,

      How it thundered o'er the tide!

And the dead captains, as they lay

In their graves, o'erlooking the tranquil bay,

      Where they in battle died.

            And the sound of that mournful song

            Goes through me with a thrill:

      'A boy's will is the wind's will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.' "

Yet the skeptic of experience inside me cannot drop all restraints and chase the fairies.  A hoarder of dreams is a hoarder still, and clutter makes you stumble.  A very reasonable voice beckons me to let it go.  "Let the flame take them, you don't have big enough hands to hold them and the growing facts and responsibilities."  

But there must be a line to balance on there somewhere, because it feels like murder to let the child inside utterly die.

"I remember the gleams and glooms that dart

      Across the school-boy's brain;

The song and the silence in the heart,

That in part are prophecies, and in part

      Are longings wild and vain.

            And the voice of that fitful song

            Sings on, and is never still:

      'A boy's will is the wind's will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.' "

And, surely, there is a reason Longfellow said what he did.  I like to think there is always a reason to genuine writing--if I stop believing that then this thing, of which I feel strongly "I was born to do," will lose its meaning.  To let the skepticism spread that far would ravage the gifts I have always felt were given by God.  Perhaps these pen-scratchings are not the money maker or the actual core of humanity's purpose, but that pen on that paper means something.  It's the direction arrow, pointing to the actual core: the man who did not try to shut off or end the inner child but said "Let the little children come to me."

And for Him and myself I must cling to the child that created worlds in her head and chased fairies--to save her from the waves of skeptical realism that want to drown her.

"There are things of which I may not speak;

      There are dreams that cannot die;

There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak,

And bring a pallor into the cheek,

      And a mist before the eye.

            And the words of that fatal song

            Come over me like a chill:

      'A boy's will is the wind's will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.' "

And so I stand my ground on this line, resolving to be a tightrope walker on that thin cord stretched between the old years and the new.  Dear God, make of me an adult strong enough to defend my inner child and her big dreams.  Let me reach for the stars again, but never forget who made them, and what this short gift of life You have given is truly for.

Lord of Heaven, guide my feet, for You know better than any what poor balance I have.

"And Deering's Woods are fresh and fair,

      And with joy that is almost pain

My heart goes back to wander there,

And among the dreams of the days that were,

      I find my lost youth again.

            And the strange and beautiful song,

            The groves are repeating it still:

      'A boy's will is the wind's will,

And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.' "