#james musing

The Lost Child

You're a wayward son, the prodigal leaving home, the empty place at your family's dinner table. For your own reasons, you left the door wide open on your way out. The people in your life stare at the mid-August brightness flooding in and suppress the urge to follow. You're grown now, and free, and you engage in all the joys of freedom with enthusiasm. Independence and practicality are vital to you, and you've come a long way on your own. Somewhere inside you, though, no matter how well you hide it, you're still that kid who strayed from the path and you need someone to tell you you're safe at last, that the world can't hurt you anymore. Will you always walk with nostalgia for those endless childhood summer afternoons dogging your steps? As a deity, you're the god of forests, of liminal spaces, or children and childhood, of lost things, of summer and of time.