Dear Reader,
Adults like you and I can’t remember what it’s like to be a child. The way everything was new, the way nothing was really your fault, the way moods flipped unabashedly and friends were made instantly. The world through the eyes of a child is a whole different animal.
Yesterday I heard a little boy yelling to the wind blowing in his face, “Wind please stop!” To him, the wind is just another somebody to talk to, who might do what you ask as long as you say the magic word. His mother kindly told him that she didn’t think the wind would listen. Logic’s reality isn’t yet resident in this little boy’s brain. The world gives him new things every day to see for the very first time and he’s free to extrapolate from there. Maybe he believes in magic, or at least doesn’t not believe in it yet. Maybe he looks at the faces of adults and wonders which one he will look like someday, when his nose is no longer a button and his baby cheeks go away. Maybe he cries when he thinks about growing older and losing life as he knows it. Maybe he can’t wait.
Children are hilarious prototypes of the people they’ll become. They’re the laughing stock, the pride and joy, the precious life that keeps their parents up at night. They’re the sum of all of their impressions and what the world has given them, done to them. Children don’t know that they’re all of this, though. They’ll learn that when they’re older.
In this issue, we take a look with older eyes at the worlds we knew as children. Grace Peak lovingly recalls the small community that raised her, a place much more special than she could have ever realized until she left. Grace Lee reflects on her own childhood experiences with cruelty and her long, intentional road to recovery. An anonymous writer recalls the day she discovered that she came from an egg donor, and her childhood recalibration of the complexity of her origins. As she enters the working world, Sarah Laico pays tribute to the lyrics that helped guide her through the difficult steps of growing older. And Manuel Uribe’s fiction piece pays tribute to the intimacy and power of a parent’s love for their children.
Adults like you and I can’t remember what it’s like to be a child, but we all secretly want an excuse to revert to one. Children aren’t ashamed, they don’t use inside voices, they laugh at silly things and lose themselves in play-pretend. Some say that growing up means you have to let go of all these things, but I’m not convinced that’s true, I’m not convinced that wisdom leaves childish creativity and vulnerability behind. So, dear reader, open your eyes to everyday newness, and don’t let yourself lose childhood’s humility and nonsense.
Youthfully yours,
Hannah Stoll and the Cipher staff