FOR THE FIRST TIME

Just thinking of a whole new life in the family reminds me of all the things he’ll experience for the first time---almost everything, in fact, will be Brand Spanking New and fresh.

And how would it be to approach things once again, with the eyes of a child? How would be the sights and scents and tastes of things we’ve experienced for so long that they’ve lost some of their WOW! or their MMMM or AWWWWW!?

Think of a fresh morning---you go outside and hear the leaves susshing and feel the air on your face. You smell that scent of early dawn, that first-day-of-the-World smell that’s air and breeze and mist and promise of sun and it’s just for YOU.

New touches, new thoughts, new feelings, new flavors---from chocolate to clover, from dirt to dew---they’re all waiting. The first startle of ice cream on the tongue, a puppy-lick on the cheek, a snuggle into warm blankets, flashes from the camera of proud parents, the music of wind chimes.

Wouldn’t we love to enter school again for the first time, smelling that one-of-a-kind odor of chalk and children and new-from-the-store clothes and the grinds of sharp new pencils, with the lead and shavings falling? See that array of pencils up there? Those hold as bright a glow as any sunrise.

The clay-taste of new Crayolas, in all their grandeur of color---if their taste matched their beauty, every child would devour the box the first day, and any of the Old Masters would have given their best brush for these. And the whiff of paper pages, the scent of peanut butter from a lunchbox, a banana from a backpack, an apple or an orange?

Just the HAVING of those new tools and possibilities, the hearing and the learning of shapes which make Letters which make Words which make Books---the most magical thing of all.

Wouldn’t you like to approach some of your favorite books for the first time, with a fresh eye and a mind open to what-comes-next? Each turn of a page is a new horizon, and to encounter Austen and Christie and Seuss and Doyle FOR THE FIRST TIME---what a wonderful thing that would be! Not to know if Mr. Darcy WAS the One for Elizabeth, or to read fervently to the end of Witness for the Prosecution; to rattle-read the lively tempos of Horton and Sam-I-Am with fresh delight, to sit in that darkened room at Stoke Moran, a-tingle with fear and anticipation of The Speckled Band---oh, to be so caught up in such a story as those!!

To fly your first kite, to feel your small toes reach the pedals of your trike, to feel the wind as you pick up speed on your first bike, not knowing you’re untethered and free, with your Dad standing WAY behind, grinning at your feat, as your balance clicks in, forever yours to keep.

A first ride on a carousel, a plane, a horse, a skateboard, a train---first night in the backyard tent, a cabin by the lake, your own room.

People and things and music and movies and books and places to see---there are more good things to sample than there is time to do them, and how we wish for more time, more time.

But there's always the NOW, like the First Morning of the World.