That’s Feri in the photo. He lives in Romania. He is the son of a friend of a friend, and I think he is 8. Maybe 9? Whatever the number, he is a lanky boy child, gooey with curiosity and miles away from the swampland of adolescence.
I met Feri a few weeks ago. I had gone to Romania to visit my friend, who was launching her first book. When Feri heard me speaking English to his parents, he flashed his high beams and said, “How are you?” Then he counted very deliberately to 13, but left out 11 and 12. When I smiled at him, he skittled around the room the way some kids do when they meet someone they’ve taken a liking to.
No. 1: He had an accent, and that always does me in. No. 2: He is a child, and that always does me in. No. 3: Children are unstuck, silly and tell it like it is. Those things really do me in.
Feri loves English, his mother said to me. He is learning it in school and whenever he hears someone speaking English, he joins in and wants to say every word he knows. Turns out, he didn’t know more than a handful, but that didn’t stop us. We fashioned a language from bits of English, German and Romanian. Mostly we grinned at one another, made faces, pointed at things and laughed.
I looked at Feri. He tugged on my shirt sleeve, pointed outside to a substantial mound of dirt and said, “Come.”
There is no word for no when a child invites me to explore. We walked together to the backyard. The house had just been built and had no landscaping or grass.
I watched Feri climb the dirt mound. He stood on top in a triumphant pose. He grinned at me with his open face, radiating shy pride. “Good,” I said. “Very good.” He scurried down, took his plastic shovel and turned up the earth in small scoops. When he found a rock, he brushed it off, held it up for me to see as if it were a jewel and put it into my hand.
As I move through my life, it’s not aging per se that makes me wistful. I’ll accept the rusting machine and the slowed speed. What puzzles me most is the preponderance of grownups that have lost their playfulness. It’s the dearth of grownups who say what they want. It’s the sad absence of silly.
Grownups like to talk. Children like to do. Grownups like to posture. Children prefer to play. Children remind me to do one thing at a time, deeply. They urge me to tuck into my imagination. They traffic in delight. Grownups give me other things, nudge me toward other pursuits. But what children encourage in me feels essential to stoking the radiant core of things. I need them in my orbit to guide me to my best self. I see children as messengers of the gods. They bring their unfiltered lightness and remind me of the ease of joy and the agelessness of discovery and wonder.
During the weekend with Feri and his family, most of his attention centered on a swarm of three little boys and their parade of toys. From time to time I found him beside me, asking a question or pinching me so that I might chase him.
Sunday night. The grownups clustered in the living room saying goodbyes. The three boys pushed toy trucks over the floor and grunted. I picked up my camera and stood above Feri. When he turned his love eyes toward me, I could not look away.
