"You look like the president"

We are still unpacking boxes. It's a hobby I endeavor to abandon as soon as possible. There are six cardboard beasts remaining in the garage.Today, Chris unpacked one full of his clothes.

"You look like the president," chuckled Zoey from the bed as he tried on his navy suit jacket, unearthed after a technical 18 months of hibernation, though in reality, it was probably more like five years.

Growing up in Washington, DC, I knew nothing else but men in suits. Every boy I knew over the age of nine donned a sports jacket - even if it was coupled with shorts - every school day. It's just the way it was. And still is in DC, though I forget. Last time I was there, I saw two young 20-somethings walking down M street with dark suits and backpacks, and was convinced they were Mormon missionaries. It took a few blocks of walking to realize that they were Georgetown boys, or perhaps interns on the Hill.

I love watching the attire of passengers change as I fly east across the country. Stella notices too. "The men are so fancy here," she reported last May when we landed at Reagan National Airport.

She catches it all. "Why are people in San Francisco so much more free than here?" Stella asked when we first moved to Montana. We'd taken her out of her fish tank and dropped her into some very different water, and she saw it all like the fresh little anthropologist she is.

Just last week when we went over to a friend's house Stella said, "she seemed so much more aware last time we visited." When I asked her what she meant, she told me that the woman just didn't seem present.

It's funny that we often think that kids don't get it or aren't old enough to understand. Really, they're not old enough to pretend like nothing's happening.



Is it true that we spend much of our lives attempting to return to the person we were before our essence was altered by our experiences?

Reminds me of one of my favorite poems:

"My heart leaps up when I behold"

W. Wordsworth

          My heart leaps up when I behold

              A rainbow in the sky:

          So was it when my life began;

          So is it now I am a man;

          So be it when I shall grow old,

              Or let me die!

          The Child is father of the Man;

              I could wish my days to be

          Bound each to each by natural piety.