Seeing Through the Eyes of a Child

We all could use a little enchantment.

Photo by Marko Blažević on Unsplash

Over the summer my oldest granddaughter, 10-year-old Margaret, was bitten by the writing bug. At first she was creating a short story, but she kept writing until it was no longer short. When she finally concluded the project in late August, it stood at 80-plus handwritten pages – an admirable feat of stamina and persistence.

It’s a story about enchanted jewelry, an evil witch, a couple of intrepid girls, time travel, and magic. Lots of magic. I know I am biased, but I think it’s quite good!

As I watched her progress and cheered her on from the sidelines, I could not help recalling a similar summer experience of my own. For my 10^th birthday, my uncle gave me a square wooden box containing 32 beautifully hand-carved chess pieces. The gift had a powerful effect on me, inspiring me not only to play more chess, but to devote the summer to writing a story about an enchanted chess set. The story featured  knights and castles, kings and queens, time travel, intrepid boys, and magic – lots of magic. Throughout the summer my imagination was ablaze as I wrote page after page of plot and characters. When it was done, I held in my hands what I considered a novel.

It is too early to say whether Margaret’s episode of writing fever is a one-time outbreak or, as in my case, the inciting incident in a lifetime case of chronic authoritis. It doesn’t matter. I tell the story because it got me thinking about enchantment.

Reading Margaret’s story, and recalling my own at the same age, took me back for a moment to a time when the world was new and anything seemed possible – when it was entirely possible for a sparkling necklace or a hand-carved bishop to have magical powers – when boys and girls could respond to threats and challenges with bravery and daring – when a walk through the woods might reveal fairies darting between the flowers – and when pure ideals and the best intentions prevailed over the cynicism of hardened grownups.

A few of us manage never to lose that ability to see with fresh eyes. According to a recent biography of Albert Einstein, the brilliant physicist retained the intuition and awe of a child. Late in life, he wrote to a friend, “People like you and me never grow old. We never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into which we were born.”

Why It Still Matters

It’s quite possible for even the most world-weary, hidebound, crotchety muggle among us to recapture a taste of that child-like openness. Moreover, it’s good for us to experience the world that way from time to time. Remaining curious and experiencing the world with awe and wonder is one of the best ways to keep our minds operating in tip top shape. A brain that can see beyond the ordinary and the everyday is a brain with the flexibility and agility to roll with the changes life throws in our faces. It is a brain capable of changing the perceptions of reality – one that can absorb loss and disappointment and yet find the resilience to experience awe and appreciate the gift of living.

In Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age, author Katherine May writes of her journey to overcome her Covid-19-related exhaustion and isolation by trying to uncover the sense of awe that seemed easy to access as a child. The key for her, as the title suggests, was enchantment, a feeling she describes as “small wonder magnified through meaning, fascination caught in the web of fable and memory.” To access enchantment, she writes, you need only be able to look at the world with an open heart and mind. You can find enchantment in “small doses of awe” just from daily interactions that bring you joy wherever you find them.

Small doses can be the face of a child greeting his new pet puppy for the first time. It can be an awesome spider web suspended from a tree branch. It can be an appreciative smile on the face of a stranger. It can be wondering about clouds or the color of the sky.

And it can be the look of pure satisfaction on the face of a 10-year-old author who lives in a world where magic is as real as gravity and anything is possible.

Back in 1961, my father showered effusive praise on my first literary effort and made a suggestion: Could he send my manuscript to his sister Dora to have it typed?

Aunt Dora was more than a typist. She was a would-be writer herself, who had gone to New York City to seek her fortune but got no farther than secretary. Of course she typed it, all 15 pages of it, and her praise was the strongest possible affirmation. From that moment on, I knew I was a writer.

It was time to pay it forward.  “Margaret,” I asked the young writer, “I like your story very much. Would you like me to type it for you?”

What’s Your Joywork?

Have you found a project or a new venture in retirement that satisfies your needs? I’d love to hear more about it! Contact me at don@donakchin.com.