It is such a CS Lewis summer
I want a tunnel in my attic. And an Uncle Andrew. And a boy next door named Diggory. And Aslan. And a wardrobe. And a friend to come play with me. I want-- anything.
My daddy used to read the Chronicles of Narnia to me, as well as Just So Stories and the Adventures of Tom Sawyer. They all have a very nostalgic connection.
This is from Prince Caspian, possible my favorite passage in that book:
'But when she saw the earths that were actually brought to them she felt quite different. They began with a rich brown loam that looked almost exactly like chocolate; so like chocolate in fact, that Edmund tried a pice of it, but he did not find it at all nice. When the rich loam had taken the edge off their hunger, the trees turned to an earth the kind you see in Somerset, which is almost pink. They said it was lighter and sweeter. At the cheese stage they had a chalky soil, and then went on to delicate confections of the finest gravels powdered with choice silver sand. They drank very little wine, and it made the Hollies very talkative: for the most part they quenched their thirst with deep drafts of mingled dew and rain, flavored with forest flowers an the airy taste of the thinnest clouds.'
It makes me wish I was four years old again. I used to call my favorite teachers (art or geometry) to the playground and seat them in handfashioned gravel stools, and serve them iris juice (made by scraping iris leaves with a sharp rocks) and dirt soup, made from excellent samples of all the soil varieties on the playground. Sometimes I'd even give them sand cakes for dessert, flavored with red berries and waxy leaves, with a garnish of orange pebbles, which of course, were a delicacy. I think I used to play the same game with Alida, and maybe Deborah. I hardly remember, and it breaks me that I don't.
I miss playing those games. It's raining outside right now, and I wish I had someone with me to enjoy it with. If I had a friend here, and you were in exactly the same type of mood, then we would be outside in the storm. There's a muddy brown river flowing peacefully, just like the nile, or the mississipi, in my back yard that we would probably sail in. Or maybe even swim in. If Alida (as i remember her. Not as she is now) was here, I know exactly what game we would play. We would be queens of some mythical land, with the nile river running past our window (only because I'd have heard the name before), and a jungle where my mother's herb garden is. More likely, we would be orphaned Naiads living in my playhouse. The next minute we might become full fledged goddesses who were going to a ball in the neighboring castle (the garage) who had to trek through teh nile and the soggy marshes to get there on time. One of us would get sick, and the other would have to find magical herbs in the wilds of africa (again, the garden) to save her. We would be sopping wet and dirty, and once again, she'd have to spend the night for lack of dry clothes. Our game would continue far into the night, when we'd attend feast given by the fauns and tree spirits (my family) where we'd eat their freshly caught salmon, grubby potatoes, tree bark juice (tea), and posonous forest greens (we didn't eat SALAD). We would of course bring our offering of rosemary and thyme icecream, chocoalte sand cake, and honeysuckle. Our game lasted long into the night, probably under a different name now, as we would get lost in wardrobes, stuck in towers, and married to horrible pigs. We would fall asleep on our futons with the princess bride playing quietly, books, dolls, and clothes strewn across my floors, and with dreams of tommorows hiding spaces, plans to get one another to sleep over, and the love two best friends share in our heads. The summer would never end for us.
Let's go home.
My daddy used to read the Chronicles of Narnia to me, as well as Just So Stories and the Adventures of Tom Sawyer. They all have a very nostalgic connection.
This is from Prince Caspian, possible my favorite passage in that book:
'But when she saw the earths that were actually brought to them she felt quite different. They began with a rich brown loam that looked almost exactly like chocolate; so like chocolate in fact, that Edmund tried a pice of it, but he did not find it at all nice. When the rich loam had taken the edge off their hunger, the trees turned to an earth the kind you see in Somerset, which is almost pink. They said it was lighter and sweeter. At the cheese stage they had a chalky soil, and then went on to delicate confections of the finest gravels powdered with choice silver sand. They drank very little wine, and it made the Hollies very talkative: for the most part they quenched their thirst with deep drafts of mingled dew and rain, flavored with forest flowers an the airy taste of the thinnest clouds.'
It makes me wish I was four years old again. I used to call my favorite teachers (art or geometry) to the playground and seat them in handfashioned gravel stools, and serve them iris juice (made by scraping iris leaves with a sharp rocks) and dirt soup, made from excellent samples of all the soil varieties on the playground. Sometimes I'd even give them sand cakes for dessert, flavored with red berries and waxy leaves, with a garnish of orange pebbles, which of course, were a delicacy. I think I used to play the same game with Alida, and maybe Deborah. I hardly remember, and it breaks me that I don't.
I miss playing those games. It's raining outside right now, and I wish I had someone with me to enjoy it with. If I had a friend here, and you were in exactly the same type of mood, then we would be outside in the storm. There's a muddy brown river flowing peacefully, just like the nile, or the mississipi, in my back yard that we would probably sail in. Or maybe even swim in. If Alida (as i remember her. Not as she is now) was here, I know exactly what game we would play. We would be queens of some mythical land, with the nile river running past our window (only because I'd have heard the name before), and a jungle where my mother's herb garden is. More likely, we would be orphaned Naiads living in my playhouse. The next minute we might become full fledged goddesses who were going to a ball in the neighboring castle (the garage) who had to trek through teh nile and the soggy marshes to get there on time. One of us would get sick, and the other would have to find magical herbs in the wilds of africa (again, the garden) to save her. We would be sopping wet and dirty, and once again, she'd have to spend the night for lack of dry clothes. Our game would continue far into the night, when we'd attend feast given by the fauns and tree spirits (my family) where we'd eat their freshly caught salmon, grubby potatoes, tree bark juice (tea), and posonous forest greens (we didn't eat SALAD). We would of course bring our offering of rosemary and thyme icecream, chocoalte sand cake, and honeysuckle. Our game lasted long into the night, probably under a different name now, as we would get lost in wardrobes, stuck in towers, and married to horrible pigs. We would fall asleep on our futons with the princess bride playing quietly, books, dolls, and clothes strewn across my floors, and with dreams of tommorows hiding spaces, plans to get one another to sleep over, and the love two best friends share in our heads. The summer would never end for us.
Let's go home.