Kira Nelson: Life Lived versus Life Perceived

In his essay On Three Ways of Writing for Children, C.S. Lewis writes of how one’s childhood is lived immeasurably different from what their elders’ saw (Lewis, 33). The perspective and imagination of a child is quite different from that of an adult, thus separating childhood as it is lived and childhood as it is observed. I thought of the countless days spent playing in the backyard of my childhood home. My father got this amazing European style swing (the seat of which is flat and stiff instead of the flexible kind than squeezes your sides) and installed it between two of our large trees. I absolutely adored this swing and spent a great deal of time on it, testing the limits of how high I was able to go, and later trying to calculate the right height and position of the swing from which to let go and attempt a back flip such that I would land on my feet. The kitchen sink window faced the backyard, and it is from this vantage point that my mom often watched my brother and I play in the back. Little did my mother know that when I was on the swing, with my eyes closed and head tilted back towards the sky and sun, I was transported to another place. This was a place I only visited while on the swing set with eyes closed. There, there was a seemingly endless field of daisies and wildflowers beneath my bare feet that swayed with the breeze. There were also many creatures that I greeted in this place, small chipmunks not shy like most, chirruping birds that taught me their songs, excited squirrels running this way and that, and friendly leprechauns that would smile and wave, happy too see me again. I now wonder if my mother, as she reluctantly received her messy-haired, rosy-cheeked, soot-covered, bright-eyed daughter back into the house, had a remotely accurate perception of my childhood and the many adventures and marvels that it is composed of.