The Journey: Month Twenty-Nine.

Youth.

His little fingers made smudges on the glass door. They glided across the smooth surface with an audible squeak. It was the sound that first made me look up to see the young boy enter the cafe. He was no more than four, wearing a bright red jumper with blue denim jeans. Ironically it was pretty much the same thing I was wearing that day. The morning outside was still as the sun shone into the humming cafe. The boy slowly meandered in through the door, his hand following along on the wall as he moved. Next came the bookshelf, his pudgy little fingers bounced along the tightly packed spines of the magazines. I'm not sure if his feet were dragging his hand or the things he was feeling which dictated the speed at which he moved. The boy was captivated by the sensory overload that the cafe offered. He was gawking with his mouth hanging open at two friends conversating loudly with great gestures and facial expressions. I started to zone in on the things that the boy was focusing on. I started to see this world which I know well through a younger person's eyes.

‘SHWWWWSHT’ shouted the steam wand of the shinny coffee machine. The boy's attention quickly gravitated toward the machine. Steam and a variety of sounds rose from the machine as two baristas played with its knobs and switches. The boy was once again captivated by what was going on around him. He had now come to be clutching the leg of the stool that was opposite to the one I sat on. I looked at the hand he was using to support himself. The little fleshy parts of his fingers, bulging either side of his knuckles. His hands clutched the leg of the stool with a cushioning comfortability and a simultaneous confident security. The boy had now noticed me noticing him. He came up to me and stood looking up into my face, swinging his arms back and forth at his side. His dirty blond fringe sat scruffily upon his forehead as he looked up. It wasn’t just his jeans and jumper he sort of looked like me. He looked like how I looked when I look at pictures of me at that age.

It took me back to memories of my dad taking me out for a fluffy at the Muffin Break in the Meridian Mall in Dunedin. I remember sitting and observing the world go by as my father worked on his sermons on his laptop. I'm not sure if these memories are my memories or just memories of my father which he has told me about. Memory is an unreliable narrative yet, often it is one of the clearest and most emotional ways to look at the past. The boy looked blankly into my soul with the occasional blink, not expressing any emotion. He simply observed my existential trip down memory lane. It struck me how much of this space the boy was deeply taking in, the sounds, textures, and smells. Most likely these rich observations would be lost to the boy due to the course of time. The thought that most of the reality and memories of this kid would be forgotten by the time he was my age saddened me. As I continued to look at the young boys face he kept looking back, kids have a profound ability not to feel shame or embarrassment. This lack of shame in kids is what I think makes them excellent observationalists. Kids have an openness and very few preconceived notions about the world which they take in.

A man walked into the cafe slowly, he also looked around deeply taking in his surroundings. He ambled over to the counter to order. Instinctively the boy without taking his eyes off me moved over and buried his face in the thigh of the man. The father held his son against his body and patted him on the back as he ordered a coffee and a fluffy for the boy. As I believe my father would have if that was me and my dad many years ago in Dunedin. I watched the boy lead the father outside to find a seat. This precious moment was a reminder and a challenge to me. How do we maintain our childish openness to the world whilst also having the capacity to remember and dissect the world we are taking in? These thing almost fight against each other, the more we dissect and rationalise the less openness we allow ourselves. They say youth is wasted on the young, I think the wasting of youth is youth itself. It sounds sad when you think about it for too long, so don’t.

Much Love, Be Blessed,

Jesse.