This summer, one particular afternoon with three girls, all around 8 and 9 years old, reminded me exactly how it felt to be a kid.
At Jamaica Pond, we have a sometimes friendly, sometimes evil Pond Monster. I told my kids about him and had a little more fun than normal telling them stories about my encounters with the Pond Monster. And instead of giving me looks of disbelief and calling me crazy, the three girls added onto my stories and made up other potential scenarios of meeting the Pond Monster.
And so for the rest of our boat ride, in between tacks and gybes, the girls and me came alive in our storytelling and attempted to get the Pond Monster to visit us in our boat. I almost forgot that the Pond Monster was just a little myth we invented. For the first time since I was given adult responsibilities, I forgot that I was 19 and was transported back to when I was 9 years old myself and learning to sail on the harbor with a similar idea that the Harbor Monster could be lurking underneath my boat.
Three little girls gave me the chance to be a kid for one more afternoon and remind myself that even if I’m 19 and technically supposed to be a full adult, I can slip inside my little kid mind and allow my imagination to swim with the Pond Monster again. -Anthony
