A Childhood: Long Forgotten

No offence to Cat Stevens, but though he made this song famous, it is in my fathers voice that I will forever hear it.

My early childhood was one of rugged innocence cultivated on the wild untamed hills of Santa Fe, New Mexico. The warm desert like land was but my playground, the trees my jungle-jims. This archaic, but beautiful world gave nurchure to my 'overactive' imagination, allowing me to see with eyes so easily lost as youth disappears.

In a mudhill, now hardened under the suns relentless gaze, I saw my throne. In a knarled and mutalated tree I saw not the brutality of time, but my home as a indian daughter. In rain I saw not a repiticous cycle, but the sky's longing for Mother Earth. In the twisted Cacti I saw dancers poise to take flight. And in the sunsets I saw the paintings of angles. Through those years reality and fantasy were one in the same. I knew then as I know not now.

I lived seven years in that world. Isolated perhaps, and ever so definitely shielded, but allowed to grow and explore the realms of my own imagination. I grew up with music, a constant hodge-podge symphony of my fathers folk, my mothers lullabies, and my own musical experiments on kitchen pots and pans. It grew inside me as did my imagination, both complimenting eachother. My fathers songs became imbedded in my mind. To date I recognize most if they are played, but none so much as Longer Boats. I found it more beautiful than anyother and soon put it to memory.

However, time passed, as it always must, leaving only memories as a tesimate to life and experiences long gone. I too changed, aside effect of growing up, becoming just another sleeping driver. The songs played on, but I forgot to listen and they lost their meaning for me.

I am now 15 years of age. I am a teenager, blessed and cursed in that respect. I am a daughter of the 'want' and a slave to the techonological age. In nearly everyway I am part of this concrete society, forced to forfit innocence and true originality for false uniqueness and hidden conformaty. I have forgotten the beauty of those seven years, so pure in their essence. I now nolonger believe the truth of my imagined reality and see only the design of literal reality. However, I was destined to remember, if only for a moment.

Sitting against the cushion of a simple rocking chair, my body slumped with exhaustion, I listened to my fathers voice as he sang the lyrics of songs I knew so well. The gentle strumming of his old acustic guitar caressed my skin, leaving goose flesh as they made their way to my waiting ears. Pressing myself against the chair I closed my eyes, relequishing my hold on the visable world.

On and on he played, song after song, sung in his gentle, but powerful voice. Then this song began to play as I lay there unmoving. Long had I loved this song, its lyrics so beautiful and so I let it take me. I let it pull me from myself, from the cold stone that has become my reality. In that moment I was allowed a taste of true emotion, true happiness in its sorrow. My self made icy exterior melted, leaving the human behind, the human I was as a child. And then I remembered. I remembered Santa Fe, not in events, but in feelings. I remembered the passion, the beauty, the unadulturated enjoyment and thirst for life.

And then I cried. I cried for me and who I once was. I cried for the world and who they thought they should be. I cried for pain and I cried for joy. I cried because I knew happiness and true happiness is agony, so raw in its beauty it leaves you in tears. There is no difference between joy and sorrow, they are the same, though we can't see it.

For all this I wept, unable to make sense of such raw emotions. I felt all and knew none. Tears were my only release. I cried for the enternity between two seconds and then cried no more. The tears were my own, but the catalyst was this song, a common accurance throughout my childhood.

Though I hate to cry and swear that I never do, this song if sung correctly can shatter my glacial persona. And so I thank you Cat Stevens for writing the song that my father sings that for a moment set me free.

Note: This is one of my most personal memories and though it is not written as well as other things I have written it its honest and as close to the real me as I can put into words. I am afraid that most of what I may say is incoherent in its nature for it comes from my own mind and none can truely comprehend the musings of anothers mind. I thank you for reading it and I welcome your opinions. I love this song more than anyother and shall never forget it.