I just wanna.

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

I just wanna be 4 years old again, sitting on my Mom's lap while she plays guitar and sings "You Are My Sunshine" to me.

I just wanna be sitting in my grandparent's house, warm, with the soothing tick tock of the mantle clock, watching Mitch Miller, and singing along with the songs.

I just wanna be on the playground, in 7th grade, making the big swings go as high as I could get them to go, and launching myself to fly as far as I could fly.

I just wanna be 10 years old, fishing the Ancodash for brook trout, and hitting my favorite whole where there were always 5 or more brookies hungry for my night crawlers

I just wanna be 16 again, shooting my bow in my home built range, putting ten arrow in a 3 inch square at 60 yards.

I just wanna be 20 years old again, on my 1975 Yamaha DT250, climbing impossible hills.

That's all I want. Is that too much to ask? That's all.

Seeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North

 

[taxlady]

Aren't you glad you have all those great memories?

 

[lastmanstanding]

Rock Me to Sleep

By Elizabeth Akers Allen



Backward, turn backward, O Time, in your flight,

Make me a child again just for tonight!

Mother, come back from the echoless shore,

Take me again to your heart as of yore;

Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care,

Smooth the few silver threads out of my hair;

Over my slumbers your loving watch keep;—

Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!



Backward, flow backward, O tide of the years!

I am so weary of toil and of tears,—

Toil without recompense, tears all in vain,—

Take them, and give me my childhood again!

I have grown weary of dust and decay,—

Weary of flinging my soul-wealth away;

Weary of sowing for others to reap;—

Rock me to sleep, mother – rock me to sleep!



Tired of the hollow, the base, the untrue,

Mother, O mother, my heart calls for you!

Many a summer the grass has grown green,

Blossomed and faded, our faces between:

Yet, with strong yearning and passionate pain,

Long I tonight for your presence again.

Come from the silence so long and so deep;—

Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!



Over my heart, in the days that are flown,

No love like mother-love ever has shone;

No other worship abides and endures,—

Faithful, unselfish, and patient like yours:

None like a mother can charm away pain

From the sick soul and the world-weary brain.

Slumber’s soft calms o’er my heavy lids creep;—

Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!



Come, let your brown hair, just lighted with gold,

Fall on your shoulders again as of old;

Let it drop over my forehead tonight,

Shading my faint eyes away from the light;

For with its sunny-edged shadows once more

Haply will throng the sweet visions of yore;

Lovingly, softly, its bright billows sweep;—

Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!



Mother, dear mother, the years have been long

Since I last listened your lullaby song:

Sing, then, and unto my soul it shall seem

Womanhood’s years have been only a dream.

Clasped to your heart in a loving embrace,

With your light lashes just sweeping my face,

Never hereafter to wake or to weep;—

Rock me to sleep, mother, – rock me to sleep!

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

That's nice, heart warming. I loved my mother, and remember sitting on her lap as she played guitar, and sang to me. My childhood was complicated, with a father who was divorced by my mom, and for good reasons. After she remarried a wonderful man, my stepfather, and we moved to the river, my mom's life was devoted more to her daughters. I was pretty much left to entertain myself. My dad, for all of his faults, gave me the most attention. My stepfather also spent a great deal of time with me, and taught me valuable life lessons by his example. My paternal grandmother was the most nurturing, even after I was growing, and exploring the world (the neighborhoods we lived in where friends lived 4 to 5 mils distant). By 7 years of age, I was walking alone better than a quarter mile to get to a friend's house. Once I got a bicycle, I was gone all day, from morning until dark, in the summer. It made me self sufficient, and independent. And as I was the easy one to raise, who did what I was told, didn't dabble in things you're not supposed to be doing, and not a partyer, I was trusted to pretty much go anywhere I wanted, and do whatever I wanted to do.

But still, I fondly remember sitting on my mother's lap, her playing her Harmony guitar, and singing to me. Those times were few, but are precious memories for me.

Seeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North

 

[MarianneKiehn]

I love this.

 

[rodentraiser]

As a 3 year old who had to be tied on a leash in the backyard to keep me from running away, smoked cigarettes given me by the 8 year olds up the street, and hit a playmate in the head with a (big, according to her mother) rock, I don't think I want to revisit my childhood. I'm not sure anyone else wants me to either.

But I'd go back to the 80s and stay there forever if I could. *sigh*