Spit on You
Sometimes, I want to be a kid again. Really. With all of the inhibitions removed and the lack of self-consciousness, it would be a brilliant ride as an adult.
Once, I sat with the sun streaming on me through the glass of a bus stop and watched two little girls who were barely two feet tall. They stood opposite each other, one without any props, and the other with her lavender backpack. With stern gravity, they assumed the positions of sumo wrestlers, one facing the other in uber-serious threat mode, lobbing feet back and forth in an absolutely funny pose fest.
These little girls faced off eye-to-eye as they lifted first one leg and then the other. In turn, they spat upon the ground and took their metallic floral sandals and tried to stomp out the spit bubbles, giggling like banshees as they splatted each others’ wet creations on the sidewalk.
As we watched, they started spitting on each other in an effort to win whatever battle they had drawn up in their minds as they passed time awaiting the Golden Gate bus with the green and gold stripe down the length. One corn-rowed girl spat upon the other, running around the shelter crying, “That’s what you get. I spit on you. That’s what you get……” all two feet of her total unselfconscious wonder on display for the world to watch.
I wish I could be two feet tall again, without inhibition, gleefully running around the sunlit sidewalk spitting on people who laughed with me in return. If I could skip my teens and twenties, it would be something to be given that freedom of expression once in a while.
How do you act like a child sometimes, Dear Reader?
I feel like a kid every time I’m in front of long rows of candy and chocolate. I feel so giddy and happy, and if there’s a new brand I may definitely squeal in delight, haha.
Zen, I probably squeal in front of chocolate myself. Or when I see a candy from when I was a kid. That’s a very good one.
Riding the back of a grocery cart like a scooter in the parking lot and occasionally in the aisles in the store. WHHEEEEEEEE!!!!!
I can so see you doing that, Lou.
I do this ALL THE TIME! I’m sure people think I’m an idiot but I just can’t contain myself. Sometimes, I will got to WalMart on purpose because their parking lot slopes downward (I am in the mountains, after all).
I want to go back!!!!!
Me too!!!
I know what you mean about sometimes wishing to have that old freedom. It’s so much fun to do your own thing and never care what others think. We do it so naturally in our younger years, yet after puberty hits with its mallet banging insecurities into our heads, we spend a vast amount of our adult years trying to achieve what came naturally before! Recently I found a picture of me when I was little and I looked so unrestrictedly happy! I don’t like to think I’m miserable as a rule, but I couldn’t get over how happy I looked in this photo. I started thinking about all silly gripes one has sometimes – like my legs are too fat, or does that guy prefer her to me? – all those kinds of things, and then I looked at that innocent little girl with her eyes huge from being light-hearted, and her big smile. I couldn’t help thinking to myself, she doesn’t worry about any of that stuff, so why should I?!
Children and teenagers are always told they have to learn from adults, but sometimes I think we need to learn from them, too.
Getting in touch with our carefree child is so vital, Heather, for the very reason you cite. Life beats it out of us, and it is important to put it back, to let it out.
Here you go… two goofballs spouting water at each other like a Las Vegas water show. In this case the goofballs would be my wife and son. Not me!!
And me? Act like a child? I would never ever do such a thing….
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Ha, I don’t have many inhibitions (which is why I don’t drink…much), and I do try and skip down the hall at work in the morning because it makes me smile – great way to start the day.
I’ve worked here though for 23 years so people know to expect the unexpected with me (hence my different colored hair every now and then). When I’m in a store and I hear a song I’ll dance (yes, I’m that crazy old lady – hey! Age has it’s privileges) or I’ll sing (I do not sing extremely loud, but loud enough that my children will move away from me). And I laugh, laugh, laugh. Andra, you always remind me of someone who is blessedly childlike in a most positive way. 
I love that!
Lori, you come across exactly this way, and it is always a breath of fresh air. I have never worked with anyone who skipped down the hall, and any workplace would improve if someone did.
I am absolutely certain that I’m far less self-conscious as an adult than I EVER was as a child! That probably comes from a lifetime spent learning most people aren’t paying that much attention anyway.
It’s a much better, happier way to be!
The most goofiness I get into these days usually involves Kim and Kathy (and sometimes Kathy’s hubby, Steve) and lots of giggling, or outright guffaws, until the tears roll! I recently suggested we work up a routine and get the proprietor of the small, neighborhood restaurant we frequent to sell tickets (as we often seem to elicit grins and comments from other diners there). They just rolled their eyes…..
You should totally do your act, Karen. That would be awesome. We would have to make a road trip to see it.
By the by, I got in the car to run an errand last evening, and the radio, tuned to the “Oldies” station in Sturgis, popped on. Guess what was playing . . . The Allman Bros. and Ramblin’ Man!!! Coincidence to the nth degree!
I love it when things like that happen, Karen.
One of the great things about my life, when I actually have work, is that I get to be a kid whenever I want to. Even in college classrooms, I get to let inhibitions go as I try to make people get in touch with their inner child. Although I haven’t gone so far as spitting . . . but then again I don’t think I spit much as a child either. Here’s to keeping the spirit of children with us at all times.
Amen. I wouldn’t spit, either. But, I loved her sense of freedom. It was glorious.
Loved this Andra. I have a wicked sense of humour and will for ever remain a child. Laughter fills my working day and it is possible that a few may think i’m not old enough to work, let alone be in charge. I will, however, pass on the spitting competition.
Helen, I love people who can embrace their inner child and let it out sometimes.
Ummm, well, besides my undying love of kiddie lit, I’ve been known to sing the signs as we drive along, driving everyone nuts in the car, then laughing and chiming in as we make things up or, like Karen, giggling with friends over coffee like schoolgirls in the malt shop.
Those are all great ones, Penny.
It’s funny, even when I was a kid, I wasn’t. I never wore clothes until I went to school, but that wasn’t uninhibited. I just didn’t care who saw. (I went through a phase where I cared, but that passed. I really am not bugged by people seeing whatever’s hanging out, though I try not to offend them with random body parts flopping.)
That’s just some kids. Practically every one of my friends saw my brother naked, because he would run around the house naked when they came over, screaming “naked boy! naked boy!” He called it the naked boy game. To me, of course, it was just mortifying.
How fun to think about this, Andra! I think having my granddaughters to play with has helped “loosen me up” but I don’t necessarily feel like a child again. I do observe them, though, in the way you describe watching the two little girls, and it does give me opportunities to marvel at their lack of selfconsciousness. As Sophia moves into Kindergarten in a month I’ve been holding back tears thinking that some of that innocense is going to get battered. Growing up is tough work, isn’t it? I do feel very young when I’m on a Ferris Wheel…I love them, and will ride one at least a couple of times a year. And I feel very young and have more delight with a few friends I’ve known since early elementary school. The giggling does it!
D
I try very hard to encourage the children in my life to ignore those kids who try to get them to conform. They don’t matter. I hope, sometimes, I succeed.
Everyday Andra!
I envy anyone that had a wonderful childhood and has positive memories that they can look back on and relive. My adoptive parents believed that children were to be seen and not heard. I guess the only “fun” thing that I did as a child was to go outside and shoot basketball in the summer time heat. Anything that involved being away from the purview of the iron fist made me happy. My parents did take me and my sister to spend some weeks at an uncle’s house during the summer though which was a huge blessing. I have fond memories of my uncle letting me drive his Chevy Silverado pickup truck. He was a General Contractor back home and we would get up at 4:30 am every week day and he would fix coffee and biscuits with peanut butter and syrup. See, you did help me remember a GOOD childhood memory. Sweet…. I wish there were more of them to be had. Oh well….
Biscuits with peanut butter? Wow, James. I am chomping on my screen. That sounds amazing. I’m glad this post helped you reconnect with that memory.
I think I am still very much a kid at heart–picky eater–lover of chocolate, player with paint and swinger on swings. I would love to be one of these girls–minus the part spitting part. Great question, Andra.
Hugs,
Kathy
I too love to swing on swings, Kathy.
I suspect that my totally willingness to act like a weirdo on the crowded streets of New York probably falls into that category. Hey, I’m never going to see those people again, right?
I also love riding shopping carts but it’s been years since I lived somewhere where the grocery stores actually had parking lots.
What’s funny about NY is that one can get away with just about anything there. Including hoarding Haagen Dasz.
It does provide a certain camouflage…
some mornings, when I’m biking to work bebopping along as cars with peeps the same age pass me… it makes me feel like a teen again. (sometimes I even sing out loud,(been loving Pandora’s Civil Wars station)
)