Up until now, I have 50 summers in my pocket. What this means is I’ve spun around the sun at least 50 times. I’ve done this with hopefully more to come. I have seen things and heard things. I have smelled things and tasted things. I have lived.
I’ve smiled and laughed. I’ve learned to stand after falling down. I’ve heard the great rainfalls that crashed against the rooftops and I’ve seen the snowstorms that have blanketed my surroundings into a scene of total white. I can say that I have not seen everything but I have seen beauty in its fullest splendor.
I have spun around enough times to understand that my number of trips around the world is finite; that we are limited in a way. Yet, there is no one else in the world that is more limiting than a soul with the lack of beliefs.
I have been a child at the fair, dazzled by the flashing lights and eager to win a prize at one of the games. I have tasted my share of cotton candy. I’ve tasted food from the trucks at carnivals and street fairs. I’ve had my share of sausage and peppers, funnel cakes, zeppoles, and corn and candies.
I’ve spun around on different rides and let the wind blow through my hair in giant tea-cups that twisted us around.
I had the chance to see the world as a child yet there are times when I wished that I was more of an adult. Yet here I am now after 50 spins around the sun and wishing I was a kid again.
I’ve walked the streets of New York City during street fairs and tried different foods. I’ve tasted different meals from around the world and all the while, I was smiling and content. I was wild and awake and free and wishing for the chance to share this experience with someone so perfect, so faithfully intended for me and so connected that although distant; I can still feel their presence as if there were no such thing as long-distance or poor timing.
I have memories of moments from my time in Stuyvesant Town in NYC, walking around to enjoy the greatest and oldest sport of all times – people watching. I have seen the so-called beautiful who were actually the opposite of what they’d portray. As well, I have seen the so-called ugly who were actually the most beautiful things that I have ever seen. I admire them. I envy their bravery to be, think, do and love as they choose and be who they are without worrying if they are appreciated or accepted.
I am not in any quandary nor is this a means to define my identity; but more so, this is my appreciation for anyone who so chooses to dare and live and love without regarding the merit or branding of commercialized life.
I used to see a singing transvestite who would ride around on a high-wheel bicycle near 14th Street and Ninth. They used to call these bicycles a Penny Farthing or a high-wheeler, which date back to 1871.
I remember there was a time when there were shows on television that were not reality-based. Then again, reality television is not reality by any means. We are spoon fed this pattern of entertainment as a replacement of what used to be a means of family gathering moments in the den or living room. This is back when the sitcoms of my youth caused laughter in my home. We weren’t so distracted by the news or the news reports of fear-mongering or controversy.
I remember the time I experienced a first kiss with a girl underneath one of the bunks at sleep away camp. I remember the lake behind us.
I remember being able to stand beneath the bunkhouse where the older girls slept. If I’m being honest, I can remember an intentional hole which was big enough to peek into the girl’s showers.
I remember this and thus I remember my first true vision of the female anatomy. I remember thinking and understanding why a person would go to any lengths to experience the sensation of touch.
Like I said, up until now, I have spun around quite a few times. I have completed 50 trips orbiting around the sun and with hopes for more. I have hope in my heart that more will come.
I have dreams. I have breath in my lungs; but more, I want to explore. I want it to be as it was beneath that bunkhouse as a child, giddy and ready to laugh because of my first chance at a real kiss.
I want to be this way, young and free and unrelenting. I want to go and find myself only to get lost again so that I can reconvene and retrace my steps back to a new beginning – just so I can give myself another shot or see my experience from another angle.
I want to taste kettle corn. I want to go and run and laugh and play. I want to pick up a game of kickball and play like we used to during recess. Remember? This is when nothing else was so serious and it was okay to laugh or run. It was okay to have grass stains on the knees of my jeans and ah, the world smelled so differently to me then.
I want to relive a few moments, exactly as they were, so that I can say whatever it was that I always wished I could say.
I have 50 summers in my pocket and as I travel through this entryway of nostalgia, I find myself (quite honestly and hopefully) looking to find my personal fountain of youth, which I have.
I want to shed my older skin and be pure again. I want to laugh at things like the funny man at the circus. I want to get ice cream from a cone and let this get messy.
I want to share a moment at the county fair. I want to hear laughter and allow this to drown out the nonsense of unimportant garbling. I want this to be like that moment (You know the one, right?) where young love is like it was in high school. Suddenly, there they are – the person who opens your eyes in such a way for the first time and bam life just changed, grew and flashed before my eyes.
I want to see this again; I reverted back to a youthful source so that this time I’d choose bravely. This time, I’d make sure to dance.
I want to make sure to taste a few candy apples and it’s okay if our faces get sticky. I want a caramel apple. I want a corn dog. I want a giant pretzel with some mustard and maybe a snow cone.
I want to feel the wind blow through my hair and watch the smiles of people which grow without distraction, hesitation or obstruction.
Oh God, I want to love a moment so much that I hold it and grab it dammit all if I ever let go.
I want to bleed this and breathe this and laugh out loud, – or so loud and then I could sing without hesitation and feel without procrastination.
I would like to see the world and experience an empty field, like a pasture from my dreams. This is where there’s a hill with a tree and the tall wheat-colored grass.
This is all pastoral and calm, serene and comforting like the bosom of Mother Earth; or of Mother’s touch as it whisks hair away from our face; or of Mother’s own space where we, as her children, are welcomed home.
I want to dream and think and feel and wake up to the realities that this is life, a choice, a moment, a meaningful list of memories expressed to you by me as a means of restitution which is equivalent to the compensation of my moments where I was not there, so-to-speak, yet there I was, right in front of you.
I write this as a means to release the granules of doubt that have passed through the hourglass of time. Though irreversibly, I might add that in this moment or dare I say in this expression of love and hope – I want to see the kid in us. I want to see them come out to play; as if we, the adults, have given ourselves the permission to laugh and be free – forever.
I am drawn back to the idea of the field where the grass grows tall and the hill exists and the little tree which is where I go to in my dreams. This place is very real to me. I suppose this is something spiritual for me; as if this is my birthplace of some kind.
I want to lay a blanket down and look up at the blue sky. I want to smell the air. I want to breathe in and exhale so that all of the cares would drift away – effortlessly.
I am here to spill this. I am here to allow for this moment to take place, humbly as ever, and almost child-like.
I remember a black and white photo of two children – only, there were sepia tones to colorize some of the photo to make the two children come alive, as if to say this is part life and part dream. This is part memory and part real and to us, this is part life and part fate. (I swear.)
I have watched generations of people who do nothing else but live their life away and miss the small moments of serendipity. I’ve watched countless people who miss the window of realization; whereas, their happy accidents close both consecutively and diminishingly.
But I don’t want anything to diminish, not anymore.
No, I want a spot at the carnival to see someone pull off a trick. I want a glass of something sweet and maybe some fried Oreos. Better yet, maybe we can have some red, white and blue lemonade. Or, maybe we can pick up some fudge. Maybe we can allow ourselves the moment to be young and happily unattached, alive, beautiful and free to scream when the carnival rides take off and the winds go through our hair.
Maybe I could approach you near the center of the fair where a band plays the kind of music that allows for a slow dance. I can approach you. I can act like a stranger too, just for fun, just to re-enact the first time I ever saw your face and ask, “May I have this dance?”
I have 50 summers in my pocket and if it is intended to be that I have more, then I’ll do all that I can to fill my pockets with more.
Maybe we can pick up some apple cider donuts along the way. I’ve never had them before but, well . . . they actually sound kind of pretty to me.
Then again, so does a stroll, arm in arm, walking together with a stick of pink and blue cotton candy along an empty street with a full moon above.
Sound good?
The Written Addiction 
It all sounds great. (And very appetizing 😋).