When We Were Boys....

Is this the moment of perfect happiness, or one of them, at least….? I don't know but it is certainly the time when pure fun, and joy, and transient possessions, were a big gulp of heaven…….there was no context, just these…the moments, priceless, and fleeting. We were on the clock, always on the clock.

In just a handful of months these boys would be under the spell of a different kind …they didn't ask for it, not hardly, and why would they?….they would adjust their focus, give up total dependence, and the simplicity of their lives, and be in pursuit of something that they couldn't (then) understand, nor will they likely understand it in their adult years. The elixir of adulthood would soon be streaming through these tone-less and soft bodies. The mind would be captured by a pressing agenda, their voices would deepen, the smile would be a little less spontaneous, and more self conscious and rooted in veiled confusion---wonderment and innocence would wane, all too quickly.

Can we picture utter happiness? For me, this shot comes close ----in just a handful of months, many of the joys and much of the utter silliness of childhood would grow old. The curtain would come down on this Act, a cold and melancholy wind would blow leaves along the ground where these boys then stood. These years would be replaced, with different expectations, and all the dread of being found uncool. No longer would a toothless smile be broad, and unfettered.

At this moment, these boys are all level, just by being young boys, though unlikely so in later years when some of these boys will feel separation from the others; judgment will be a very new and often used instrument, but in this frame no one is fat, or unacceptable, no one is excluded from the club. Now, they are "mates", partners--sharing these glorious moments of youth—ice cream and pizza, a piñata, running, with the sweaty brow and red cheeks of those times.

Here, we are free to be dorks, goofy, non serious, and utterly disinterested in the larger questions of life, and it's pecking order.

When does youth end, and it's sweet oblivion of happiness?

"Ample make this Bed

Make this Bed with Awe

In it wait till Judgment break

Excellent and Fair

Be its Mattress straight

Be its Pillow round

Let no Sunrise' yellow noise

Interrupt this Ground"

-Emily Dickinson

p.s. my son stands at the far left, 21 yrs. old these days, with a hairstyle that he presently wouldn't be caught dead with---such are the trappings.