Ancient Clocks

Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young.--J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

You might have seen me around the neighborhood over the years, out for a stroll with an audio system that has changed from a succession of clunky portable CD players to iPods protected by atrociously pink cases. On these walks, I retrace the paths from my youth, past a school with windows that once seemed much higher than they are, an empty pool, the cannon on the boulevard.

When I'm not walking the city streets of Brookline, over the summers I walk the archery ranges of Heritage Reservation's Camp Independence. I teach young kids how to shoot the archaic weapon and every time a child asks me to save his “lucky arrow” for next year and once, when a camper believed that a magic sword pulled from a paper-mâché rock had the power to grant wishes and stop the rain in time for campfire, I am reminded that within all the trappings of childhood lay some of the grandest of enchantments and discoveries. I'm not that old—only halfway to 46—yet sometimes I forget this.

Once the summer is over and I'm back to wandering around the community again, my experiences on the archery range serve as a reminder that the retirement home which was once Resurrection Elementary School is not just a building made murky by time with walls and windows that shrunk when I grew older. It's one of a thousand ancient clocks that I grew up to the ticking of.

I've knitted all the memories and the people of this place into stories: bike-riding lessons at the Center. Search-and-rescue missions for ill-fated grasshoppers and worms. Silver imprints of toddler-sized tap shoes atop a manhole in a yard on Bayridge Avenue. Ninety-nine cent candy at More for Your Dollar. The red-haired woman with a tattoo on her ankle who stood guard at the entrance of Brookline Swimming Pool for years. Surrounded by the skirts of mothers and nuns, a curly-haired classmate that grabbed my hand and ran through the rooms of DeBor Funeral Home with her friends at her side, and though I didn't know what she wanted, I didn't let go.

They are the tales of the victories and awakenings of youth from people and places steadfastly in the past: first kisses and friends and minor rebellions. Being 18 years old, in a chair at Decio's Tailoring, laughing as a good friend wrestles with the tie on loan for senior prom.

These are the contents that make up this blog, creative nonfiction pieces from a childhood in a community whose landmarks bear no evidence of anyone's upbringing, but plenty of memories—and I hope they invoke some of your own while reading.